Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Belt Drives

I've just got off the phone with Tony Hayward &, after lengthy discussion, he would be prepared to go into production of pulleys & belts if there is sufficient interest. I've dealt with the man in the past & found his products, pricing & attitude to be spot-on. (He drinks, smokes, swears & rides his bikes like a nutter!)
Personally, I consider the QPD ratio to be under geared & would be far happier with a 2.5:1, as opposed to the 2.33:1 on offer. Tony suggests a steel gearbox pulley & a dural rear pulley, connected by a steel reinforced polyurethane drive belt, in AT20 spec. These belts are immensely strong &, if any of you have experience of the AT10 primary belts that he supplies for the older Brits, they equate to over 3x's their strength. He has supplied AT20's to sprinters in the past & they have lasted 1000 miles of testing & 1/4 mile runs!. Somehow I don't see our 50 - 70 bhp taxing them in the slightest.
If anyone is interested, can we please come to a consensus on gearing & I will negotiate with TH directly, as to costing, etc. but apart from the initial order for my own & 2 friends set-ups, you will all be able to deal directly with Tony yourselves. He is understandably wary of initial tooling costs, not knowing projected demand so, I will be attempting to find as many definately interested parties, supplying the 1st batch of dural (R97s Group 7 Aircraft Spec Alloy), & providing a deposit to cover initial tooling, for broaches, etc, myself.
Please, get back to me on this because we would be on to a real winner if we can get him to go into prodution on these. He is a one man concern who has worked bloody hard over the years to provide good service &, an excellent range of products @ a reasonable cost. His experience in the field would prove invaluable & he continues with R&D, to constantly improve the kits he provides. He has been riding all his life, so he well knows the score & has supplied primary belt kits to riders, racers & sprinters all over the world for over 20 years. I believe that any of the Hinkley Bonnie sprinters & racers would especially benefit from these set-ups & us road-riders would end-up with a product that could be regarded as virtually indestructable.
Before any of you ask; no, I am not in business with him, I just want & expect the best that can be achieved without a NASA-like budget.

OK, how much would they cost?

Yeah, cost kind of determines my level of interest. I am interested in just about anything for the right price. Like that free cheescake in our office kitchen. I am very interested in that right now.

Ryan

The price will depend on, to a certain extent, on the number of units required. But , as I stated in my initial post, the quality is very high & the strength & durability of the polyurethane belts is beyond comparison with the rubber "things". If sufficient interest is shown, TH will go into production. If not; then I will simply make my own for personal use. Hayward belt drive primaries are known & used throughout the Brit Bike world & in truth, have no real rivals. If I can get enough numbers signed up, even just provisionaly, TH will then have a base mark upon which to set his pricing. I'm happy to do one-off work, TH is in business & will not tool-up for less than 10 initial units; it's just not viable. I know that this is not the definite answer that you would prefer but, until I can talk unit numbers with him, he cannot talk definite prices.

ballpark? Even a big ballpark?

Lew,
I agree that an AT20 might hold. Our bikes have a torque of about 60Nm at 3500 rpm. Taken the total ratio of the primary, secondary and first gear of 11.73 and a 70% efficiency would give us a belt width of 85 mm. There are room for about 30 mm, which leave us below the 3x overload capacity you state in your post. Plus we have to consider that we use this high torque only on rare occations, at normal driving conditions we probably won't even overload the belt. My major concern is the tension. A steel reinforced belt just can't stretch. Our swing is mounted behind and below the front sprocket which means that when our suspension works, the chain streches and slacks. The way we would have to set up our transmission would be with the belt tight with no weight on the bike. Then, as we load the bike, the belt will slack. Go sit on your bike and keep a finger on the chain and you can feel it slacking as the load increases. Even though the tooth on an AT20 belt is 5 mm high, they still can't take a lot of slack without wearing down quickly. The obvious solution would be a tensioner, but it would have to be a spring loaded one, and they are pretty hard to find a good place for. I can't really give you an option that I know will work, except for the unbelievably expensive Harley solution. Those belts can take it, but if you, for instance, bend them the wrong way just once when mounting them, it will render them useless. The ATP-belt would give us a smoother and quiter drive, plus it can take more torque than the AT-belt, but the stretch problem will remain. I will look deeper into this issue next winter, when I plan on converting my own bike to belt drive. Please let me know what you settled on, and how it works out.

Might hold? 85mm? Bent the wrong way? Stretch? Wear? Unable to make a tensioner? Harley solution? No insult mate but, I thought I was conversing with people who knew their stuff!

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Personally, I consider the QPD ratio to be under geared & would be far happier with a 2.5:1, as opposed to the 2.33:1 on offer.

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Please, oh puh-leez don't hate me for opening this can of worms up again but I sent Bob "Ozzie" Oswald, proprietor of QPD an email about 3 weeks ago asking him about the ratio of his pulley set. The following is the reply he sent.

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I can give you a 2.46:1 which is a 24/59 or a 25/59 that is 2.36:1 I need to remind you that the lower the no.the higher the ratio ( top end ) also there is so much difference between a chain and a belt that you can cruise in top gear with a lower rpm with a belt, that you can not with a chain. I hope this is of some help.
Regards, Bob Oswald QPD

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So as you can see if you want acceleration, the 2.46:1 is for you, and the same as the stock sprocket setup the America's have from the factory. The 2.36:1 ratio setup would lower your RPM's and give you a higher top end. Not quite to the extent of an 18 tooth sprocket, but close. $850 is the rate for either.

Price; I really can't see them costing more than the QPD offering. Should be less. We have to pay high import duties & a VAT rate (Sales/purchase tax), of 17.5% so, by the time we pay for stuff over here it usually equates to just replacing the $ sign with a £ one. Then adding a bit more for whichever thieves, sorry dealers, handle the order. I tend to get a fair number of "birthday presents!", from mainland Europe, which brings the cost of components back into the realm of reality.
Ratios; well I ride an SM with a 2.63:1 ratio. I do a lot of 2-up & loaded riding & most of the roads over here (with the exception of the motorways) are twisty so, good acceleration is a neccessity not a luxury. Most of us ride like mad-nutter-bastards over here in any case, so pissy-******-cruising is thankfully, quite alien to us. I've ridden the TBA &, was not remotely impressed with the performance; felt quite gutless in comparison with the SM. In fact, non of the TBA riders I've spoken to said other than they wished they'd bought the SM. The only real reason I would consider lowering the ratio, is because of the increase in power & torque released by dumping all that EPA nonsense which seems to sap about a 1/3 of the available performance &, because of the (rightly mentioned) difference between chains & belts.
I don't mind you opening that can, as it is important, not only to choose the correct ratio but, for us to share what knowledge & information that each of us possess. Tuning is an art not a science & what suits one rider's style, etc, does not suit another. That's why I requested tech specs from those members already running belts. The more gen we share, the better we can get our rides to perform, without having to ****** out the wife, to pay for it.

"I've ridden the TBA &, was not remotely impressed with the performance; felt quite gutless in comparison with the SM."

No offense Lew, but unless you've got one of the new '05 SM's, you're riding the same "gutles" bike we America owners are riding. Sorry but going from a 16t to 17t sprocket is not THAT much of change (I went from 17t to 18t for open highway riding, and it lowered RPM's a tad but didn't change the bike into a different bike), and otherwise the bikes are identical, other than the SM is carrying a bit more weight than the America due to the extra brake gear. And with proper tires (admittedly the America comes from the factory with crap, which can be fixed easily with some Avons), the handling edge is also no longer evident.

My point was to change the state of tune by dumping the EPA crap, inlet & exhaust correctly balanced with each other & then taking advantage of the extra P&T that this releases by a minor alteration in final ratio. I wouldn't even consider going up to 18. Mine has been clocked, by others, in excess of 115 in std. tune on the motorway. When I'm finished, I expect to happily exceed 125 without any difficulty. Whatever I do, it will not be at the expense of acceleration. I wasn't insulting you TBA riders but the lower ratio makes a hell of a difference to acceleration. One which does not seem to sit well with other owners I've spoken to. Like I said, we all have our own different riding styles. Perhaps we Brits are just harder riders, eh? Now can we please get back to the belts?

"Perhaps we Brits are just harder riders, eh?"

Um, sure you are...

While any new product offering for our bikes is welcome, as a pissy******* cruiser style rider of an underpowered TA, I find it hard to get excited about a non-existent, non-tested accessory that will probably cost 10% of the purchase price of the bike and enable me to ride like a mad nutter ba$tard.
It's great to have a dream - but it's better to have a product available for sale. I wish you and Tony luck.

Lew, what other mods are you doing to your to your engine, cause changing the final drive ratio alone won't get you there. I've done all of the mods short of the Freak, but my bike will only hit about 115 (btw, removing the emissions stuff only reduces your overall weight by about 0.2 kilos, but does absolutely nothing for acceleration or top end, since it is post combustion) You say you wouldn't even consider the 18t option, but the Speedmaster gearing is going the wrong direction for improving top end, since the 16t is really better suited for acceleration. Assuming 6500 RPM in 4th Gear, you only see 84mph with a 16t Speedmaster gear, 89 with the 17t America, and 95 with my 18t. Modify your engine to be able to get the horsepower needed will get you that top speed you desire. Unless you start doing some serious mods, your engine will need to be hitting 7400 to reach 115, and 8000 RPM to reach 125. It seems to me you need something close to 18t to get to 125, since that simple change from 16 to 18t lowers your engine speed to 7100 RPM (assuming you've got enough HP at that end of the powerband to get you to 125mph) So, unless I'm just a sod, you've got to go toward 18t AND modify your carbs/intake to get you the extra HP to beef up the upper end of the powerband, whether you're riding that crotch-rocket Speedmaster or our old tired Americas....

yawn

wanker

I know you are but what am I?

sticks and stones will break my bones!
I'm made of rubber, you're made of glue, what you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!

Hmmm, maybe we can get my 6 year old in on this discussion, might raise it up a few notches.

Hey, I bought my completely black Speedmaster about a year ago. I've been riding it for 50.000 miles, with all satisfactions, except for the chain.

I wanted to know about the reliability of this belt conversion. I used the Scootworks belt conversion for my ex-Vulcan 800 and it was like a pain in the ******.

You seem pretty confident about it. Does it deserve the money it costs?

Thanks for reading.

Hmm my $0.02 worth... all that money, time, sweat etc so you don't have to lube a chain and adjust it every so often? If it bothers you that much get a scottoiler...

Matt

50,000 miles in a year. Man I wish I could put that many miles in a year!!! You are my idol!!!!!

I use it to go to work (about 20 miles/trip, 4 times a day) and for travelling in my holidays. I travelled from Madrid to Moscu, riding my bike. Great experience, and the bike made no complains

Lew? Have you met Philswill? You sound like kindred spirits.