VS1400 Drive & Shaft Modification ......................How To Thread.

v-twin wrote:

Good man. How much difference does it actually make? Is it noticeable and is the fuel consumption less??

It's very noticeable Andrew, it's like dropping a couple of teeth on the rear sprocket which makes each gear feel longer and cruising at 75 more relaxed, it drops the revs by about 500 to 700, 5 to7 hundred rpm's doesn't sound a lot but it makes a big difference to how the bike rides as well,  not sure on fuel consumption? probably better when cruising at a steady 70 ish as the revs will be lower but overall? probably the same.

Best mod you could ever do. If only one was to be done, this should be it.

simbo wrote:

v-twin wrote:

Well?? How's Mick

It was an eventful morning!    after parking the bike half under the carport thinking I'd be working on the rear in the sunshine    it rained    and after about the 20th attempt at getting the shaft to line up    it finally slotted home and went smoothly back together   quick test ride   and off he rode into the distance 

I'm fine Andrew thanks ...... and thanks again Sim for your patience and hard work yesterday.

Done a bit of a write up in the "Member Recognition" section if you want to read up on it.

Andrew, it makes a heck of a difference ! 

As Sim said ... 600rpm might not sound a lot but when you think then engine's only spinning  4100rpm at 70mph with standard gearing and it drops to 3500 with the 1400 gearing, thats dropping it by over 15% ....... a noticeable reduction, especially as the 800 has always seemed "buzzy" at around 70mph.

Its a great mod and one I'd recommend to anyone ..... its like I have a bigger version of the Intruder now !

Well done, another good job done. 

Good to see another member in that club 

hello dear all - hello dear community

i am new to this community - i ride a Suzuki VX 800

i am courious to get to know if i can apply this mode to a VX 800 too?  Love to hear from  you

best regards  Sayhello - aka Martin

sayhello wrote:

hello dear all - hello dear community

i am new to this community - i ride a Suzuki VX 800

i am courious to get to know if i can apply this mode to a VX 800 too?  Love to hear from  you

best regards  Sayhello - aka Martin

i guess that it is possible...

saw this thread... in the vx800 forum



seems to be similar to the modifications here... isnt it!?

This project has been a long time coming.
I am not an expert, nor do I have an engineering back ground I have just brought all this information together to make it all happen. This is my adventure…..I finally got a final drive from a VS1400 Intruder installed.  The hub ratio is 2.66 vs the 3.09 of the VX.  Approx 14% taller gearing throughout all gears.
Top speed is not effected, as it is now too tall to rev beyond 7200 rpm (or 110ish mph).  This is with a new Avon Storm 150/80 on the rear. The rpms are lower in all gears.  At 60mph I turn 4200ish rpm and 70 comes at just about 5000 rpm.  I have only had it on for 2 tanks of gas so I have not memorized exact speeds.  These are approximate.

So far I have seen a consistent 220 miles per tank, on mostly highway riding at 65--70 mph.  Normally 180 miles per tank is common.

It does require the modification of your swing arm as well as the shortening of your drive shaft.
This is how it all came about:

A while ago I was looking at fiche on Alpha sports web site and I surmised that a GV 1400 Cavalcade may fit (it will fit but there are fitment issues), it looks eerily similar to the VX hub.  It took me a while to track one down, only to discover that the axel is 2mm bigger, as well as a shock post that is out board by almost a full 2cm more than stock, and the hub splines are deeper (15mm vs 10mm), and the splines of the hub are further out beyond the inner face of the hub too.
 
I had first read about a modified drive shaft/hub swap on the Intruder forums (theres over 40 pages to the thread, so if you have nothing else to do read on....).  ***I dont know how the Volusia/boulevard riders get 3100rpm at 65 but they do (so they say)***.  We (VX’ers) are supposed to have the same transmission.  I would like some help figuring that out if anyone knows what to look for.
I had ordered and received my first modified drive (from the originator of the idea, Dan Hillis) back in May of last year.  I took a day off from work to install it.  It was my first time opening up the drive hub of the VX.   Its not hard.  I quickly found out that the modified drive shaft I had gotten would not fit.  Misinformation from the seller, but its not his fault. VX has its own drive shaft length.  It is not shared with any other Suzuki that I can figure out (I have one from the GV1400, 2 VS800, 1 VS1400, 1 VS700).  So I had to get my drive shaft shortened to make it a comparable length to the hub as with the stock hub.

Let me explain.  Where the drive shaft mates to the hub is at a different height in the hub in relation to the axle on the VS1400 hub compared to the VX800 hub.  This is important to maintain so that when the suspension is in compression and the drive shaft moves in the hub (there is a small amount of play for this to happen as it is supposed to).  What I did was measure the shoulder of the drive shaft (where it meets the U joint beside the output gear) to the face (including the bearing retainer) of the old drive hub.  Then I measured the same distance from the shoulder to the drive hub face (including the bearing retainer).  I had to shorten it by that much (at this point it was last September so I dont recall what it was exactly).  I think it was 3/8". This link shows some of the engineering that has gone into the mod (not just this one, there are several versions of it)  up to today.

That was only one of the problems I had to overcome.
The other is the shock post on the VX is shorter than any of the other Suzuki Models I have found (including, GV1400 Cavlacalde, VS700, VS1400, I have purchased one, or more, from each of these so that I can take measurements of them, as well as axles and spacers).  It is shorter by about 1.2 cm.  This is an issue because the axel will not go through the right side of the swing arm as there is a parallax that occurs with the shock in the VS1400 hub (the shock base is now out of line by 1.2 cm).  I tried to follow in the foot steps of Ferenc Kovacs, a fellow VX forum member that has successfully swapped in a VS800 Intruder drive hub (geared the same as the stock VX hub).  He had the shock post unscrewed and machined down the appropriate amount.  To make the VS1400 hub fit I  didnt really want to machine it down.  Unlike the VS800 drive hub the VS1400 hub shock post is not as much of an actual post as it is just an area of the case that needs to be machined or shortened.  I was acutely aware that I may machine through the case, destroying it.  Having looked at pics from other on the intruder forum, I decided against machining the hub.

My machinist had the idea of doing this.  Shimming the shock post OUT, at the top, so the bushing rests on the treaded part of the shock post (remember we are talking about the top post here), and securing it with a bushing with a threaded insert so it is very secure.  In fact it has more threads securing it on now than it did in its stock configuration.


OK I think its question time.....




... seems to be similar to the modifications here... isnt it!?

love to hear from you

greets martin aka say hello

Sounds as tho he's going down the same route, but his revs don't make sense - is he saying that he is now getting (with the mod) 60 mph / 4200 rpm ?  What was his revs / speed ratio before - Andrew (v-twin) can you shed some light ?  Now I've fitted the rev-counter on my bike, I can see I'm getting (in second gear) approx 10 mph per 1000 rpm - so 30 mph = 3000 rpm, (in third gear) approx 40 mph at 3000 rpm & (in top gear) 70 mph at 3500 rpm.  From what I'm understanding of what he's saying ( & I may be reading it wrong), that even with the mod fitted, he's getting a lower speed / higher rev ratio than we are without the mod?  Am I reading it wrong ?  Are VX's that much more higher revving than VL's ?

At least you know it's possible

I reckon the VX 800 will be geared differently to our VL's Dave - it's a different type of bike and from what I remember from Andrew's VX it redlined at about 9000 rpm which is higher than you'd want to rev ours to ........ That might explain the difference ?

The VX does indeed redline at 9k, which it will get to eventually, I can't remember the speed to rev ratios though, but from memory I think it would do about 120mph (on a good day with back wind ). I did contemplate doing the same kind of thing with the shaft that has been done with the VL, but I could not find enough info to 100% confirm it would work on a VX without a lot of work, so I decided against it and bought my GSX1100G :)

hello dear all


- many many thanks for the input in your reply - great to see the sharing of knowledge and experience.

well the vx has got a bad bad bad gearing.

 but an us-guy did some modifications:

  - see the thread with many many explaining replies and pictures - i guess he is going a similar way ... isnt  he..



vx800forum.com/  [see the thread - ] forum/index.php?topic=1972.0

note: you have to build the url - to see the thread with all the informations. Just combine the first and the second part of the above line...

and a final conclusion - to get started;

 i need to have a look for a VS 1400 final drive - or what do you suggest!?

i love to hear from you

any ideas any tipps - love to hear from you

Personally I think you are not going to be able to do this unless you completely redesign the bike so better to buy a VL800 & put the VS1400 diff on that sorry to say.

I agree with Pete - unless you absolutely adore the bike, it seems like a helluv a lot of work for the gains.

All right dear - i think it will be a tremendous amount of work - i think that the work is too much...

sayhello 

As far as I'm aware, no one on this forum has any experience of doing this mod to a VX, only to Intruders.  Andrew had a VX, but had not changed the diff unit (correct Andrew?).  Unless someone here has personal knowledge of this mod to a VX, it would probably be best if you were seeking help from the forum where you saw it posted originally.  I would have thought that a VX forum would be better able to advise you than an Intruder forum.  I'm sure we'd all be very interested to hear how you get on with it.

The link you posted just goes to an index page

katsd wrote:

sayhello 

As far as I'm aware, no one on this forum has any experience of doing this mod to a VX, only to Intruders.  Andrew had a VX, but had not changed the diff unit (correct Andrew?).  Unless someone here has personal knowledge of this mod to a VX, it would probably be best if you were seeking help from the forum where you saw it posted originally.  I would have thought that a VX forum would be better able to advise you than an Intruder forum.  I'm sure we'd all be very interested to hear how you get on with it.

The link you posted just goes to an index page

  We're here to help in any way possible! but unfortunately no one on this forum has covered this modification on a VX800 (yet) good luck with your quest and keep us informed if it's possible 

More great info Dave, being new to the cruising scene I was looking at ways to squeeze a little more from my K3

Ive followed this thread and have just got a 2005 vs1400 drive unit to put in my 2008 m50 boulevard. the driveshaft in the 1400 is 450mm long,20 mm longer than the 8oo driveshaft. if my measuremets are correct ,I can use the unit with the original driveshaft, shortened by 20mm and with the shoulder turned down. this is different from everything I have read on this thread, so Im confused.

beachartist wrote:

Ive followed this thread and have just got a 2005 vs1400 drive unit to put in my 2008 m50 boulevard. the driveshaft in the 1400 is 450mm long,20 mm longer than the 8oo driveshaft. if my measuremets are correct ,I can use the unit with the original driveshaft, shortened by 20mm and with the shoulder turned down. this is different from everything I have read on this thread, so Im confused.

I think you might need to read it again, The VS1400 shaft is no more than a paper weight for this mod, You use the 1400 diff with a modified M50/C50 shaft. Dimensions are on page 1 for the milling of the 800 shaft.

thanks for replying simbo, my vs 1400 diff,ex usa. the driveshaft is 20mm longer than the m50 boulevard driveshaft, not shorter as your pictures show. I have just come back from a quick ride with the new diff and it makes a huge difference,as others have said. all I have done is slot out the mounting holes in the driveshaft cover,as per instructions, then cut off 20 mm off the end of the 1400 driveshaft , ground down the shoulder, as per instructions,then mounted diff in. worked a treat. thats why I said I was confused with the pictures because the driveshaft shown, is definetly not what I have?????

Hi all, just fitted the final bit to my diff swap! I have bought from Ronbinsons Foundry the chrome cap to hide the spindle on the diff. Part number is 64792-38B00 & cost around £10- + postage.
Finishes off the diff so you no longer need to see the ugly spindle now!

hawktheslayer wrote:

Not for those of us who have ever removed the back wheel & know what Pete is talking about 

I don't really think a picture of a chrome cap on the diff is earth shatteringly useful Justin & seeing as photobucket & I do not work together it will remain forever just a thought to some of you who have NOT done there own diff swap & anyway you'll see it in Wales next month so will have to wait till then sorry.

hello. I transferred the diff from 1.4 to 750. everything works.

sure thing - this is one of the most important threads - i am so happy about all the information. AWESOME