Changing 14 tooth front sprocket over to 15 tooth upgrade for small adventure bikes

[stephensatt]

So a good upgrade I did on the 2017 Versys-X 300 was switch to a slightly bigger sprocket, a 15 tooth front sprocket. One of the things that Kawasaki did was make 1st gear basically a "granny gear" good for about 7mph. I could start the bike off in 2nd, no prob and sometimes I did. The Ninja engine, which is a parrallel twin red-lines at 12k and you are always running about 6k-8k most of the time.

So at first, I thought having a granny gear for 1st was cool feature for a small engine because I could power up hills in 1st and it was pretty cool but got really exhausting and cumbersome shifting to 2nd in a turn from a stopped position, and it was very "jerky", like a tractor. Thats the number one complaint. So if you are at a stop sign and are making a turn with the 14T sprocket, you will be shifting to 2nd in a turn, and its jittery. Its much smoother now and you get a little more top end, maxing at 110mph, whereas the 14T maxed at 103 mph. It was super easy to change it out.

 

[Jcstratt]

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[focus frenzy]

have to remember that on bikes that get their speed reading from the counter shaft of the transmission, you will need to install a speedometer correction device.
the Versys 650 up to 2016 is one such bike. and it looks like the little versys is also.

 

[Jcstratt]

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[randypower]

This is true to a point. Unless something has changed, the KLE650s overestimate speed by roughly 8.5% (UJM standard?). The speedo pickup is at the drive sprocket. Going up from a 15 to a 16 front decreased the speedo error down to about 1 mph at 70 mph...i.e. 70 indicated was 69 actual. Going down a tooth from 15 to 14 would increase the error to around 15% and would have necessitated a speedo healer for me. Just my experience with the Versys and gen 1 Vstrom 1000, gen 2 Vstrom 1000 was a different beast.

This was exactly my experience going one tooth larger on the countershaft sprocket on my XT250. It corrected the speedometer nearly completely. It's still optimistic by ~1mph at full speed.

 

[stephensatt]

I did some reading about that in the Kawasaki forums and they say that the pickup is exact regardless of teeth, and yes I did see a pickup coil right next to the front of the front drive sprocket. Also, these guys are saying that Kawasaki has allowed for this but not to exceed 2 teeth either way, and if you do then it does require a computer mod.

 

[Jcstratt]

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[RWhitehouse]

If it's an ABS model, newer Kawi's read the speed from the rear wheel ABS sensor (so changing gearing does not affect speedo). Non-ABS models use a countershaft sensor, in which case lower gearing will make the speedo read faster, higher gearing will make it read slower. Sometimes the countershaft sensor is used for a gear position indicator as well (computer compares engine RPM vs countershaft RPM to calculate what gear you must be in- cheaper/easier than having a six position switch buried in the transmission somewhere). If the indicator goes blank if you pull in the clutch, or aren't moving- chances are this is how it works. Even if the bike has no gear display, the ECU knows what gear you're in, since it often adjusts timing or throttle response depending on the gear.

To me Kawasaki seems to under-gear virtually everything. My Ninja 1000 would be humming along at like 6000rpm in top gear just to do 70. Felt ridiculously "busy" and first gear was completely useless. I was constantly going for 7th gear. A +1 sprocket definitely helped settle it down but honestly I still thought it could do with a -1/-2 rear also. It was a '15 ABS model, changing gearing did not affect the speedo (it was ~7% fast both before and after).

 

[Jcstratt]

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[humanrace]

My DRZ400 is 3 MPH off at 60 MPH regardless of what gearing I have.

 

[Windmill]

My XR650L reads off the front wheel hub so when its off the ground it is way off