Post
by teazer » Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:46 pm
e3Steve is correct. The percentage represents the gap between gears.
For example first to second on a CB27 is 40.4% and as one shifts from first into second the motor will now be running 40.4% slower in second gear.
So if the change is made at 10,000, the motor will drop by 4,044 revs as the clutch is released in second. That's a huge drop. The higher teh state of tune of the motor the less it can afford to drop. A street motor might be fine with a 4044 drop to 5956rpm but it is right off the boil and out of the powerband.
On a more highly tuned motor that would be a disaster dropping down so low.
So we want teh drops to be less than that and we want smaller drops as we go up the box because we have less leverage from the gearing in taller gears. That's great but if all the gears are closer together than stock it means that either top gear is lower or bottom gear is higher.
let's say that our box drops 64% overall (CB72) so we can do say 100 in top and say 36mph in low gear.
Race Kit CR box has a 42% overall drop so if it's geared fro 100mph at the same revs, it will now do around 60 in low gear which is what 2nd used to be good for, so it's like taking off in second gear. Great on a race track but horrible in stop start traffic.
So now we need more gears so we can retain some sort of bottom end for teh same top end. Like everything in motorcycle design - it's a compromise. The trick is to work out a combo that works best fr your bike, ridden the way you like to ride within the design constraints of the motor.