With powersports vehicles, especially off-road competition bikes, there are very few maintenance items as important as keeping up with the chain. Every penny that you spend to gain horsepower, a tenth here and a tenth there, all depends on the chain. Afterall, it has to carry that power to the rear wheel. If you've been around racing at all, you'll be the first to know that horsepower is expensive and when you start to try and squeeze that "factory" power out, It's really expensive.
So why would anyone leave the chain to chance?
I think some people are overwhelmed with so many lubrication options and random advice. Experience plays a huge roll in it as well.
So how can you be sure that your not over-looking the obvious and you're not robbing horsepower through the chain?
Well that's a really good question and I aim to shed some light on it through experience and good old-fashioned common sense.
In the chain game, there are three main enemies:
- Dirt and Grime
- Adjustment
- Friction.
Pretty simple right?
I agree when the chain and sprockets are new. Install it, adjust it, lube it up and go!
A new chain will "stretch" as it wears in. Make sure that you check your service manual for the
specifications to keep it in proper shape. This is NOT a how-to article, but as a "Pro-Tip", I use the "Three Finger" method for quick checks and piece of mind. This will work on any bike, for a quick "Spot Check". Be sure the bike is turned off and the chain is cool. Stack three fingers and lift the chain above the swing arm. Insert three fingers just behind the chain slider. The chain should be snug against your fingers and not allow for your pinky finger. The illustration here shows good adjustment where the image to the right show it too tight. There are some great products out there for spot checking this adjustment. I've used a socket that is the right height and placed it in the same location for the check. I have found that using my fingers gives me a more accurate "feel" for the adjustment. I may think " it's good, but It's starting to get loose" because I can feel that, where using a socket I can not.So here is where things get sticky (pun intended).
You blaze in your first 20+2 moto on your new chain. Everything went great. Now it needs to be cleaned, lubed and adjusted. So you break out your "Grunge Brush" or your standard issue wire brush and start scrubbing. The problem is that the "industrial strength, paraffin wax impregnated, nuclear processed, brand name, chain lube" that you just had to have is, (A) attracting dirt and grime and (B) you can't get it off. No doubt that this is "anti-sling" for sure. In fact it's "CANT GET IT OFF". But you really need to get the dirt off. If you don't, your new chain and sprockets are going to wear out quickly. So you scrub and scrub and scrub.... until finally you go for the WD... spray that light penetrating oil on it starts to break up, but it's still a ton of elbow grease and headache to get it clean and now you've used two products and wasted money to get the chain clean. The question is, now what are you going to do? Spray that lube on it again? Yep, you just paid $12.99 for that.... and so the cycle repeats.
In my opinion, this is where the maintenance of the chain breaks down in frustration. People just don't want to spend that kind of energy on the chain. Doing a half-ass job doesn't make it better and how often does a chain break anyway? Well, I can tell you that if you have ever had one come apart and destroy the case, you would feel differently.
Or worse, put you or your rider on the ground. I would have trouble sleeping at night knowing that the chain broke on the face of a quad because I didn't maintenance it properly.
Not doing the maintenance is not a good option!
WARNING - Some people don't want your opinion, Approach with caution. 😏
Now that we are all going to pay more attention to the chain, lets talk about performance for a second. Friction creates heat and heat swells metal. A swollen chain is tighter around the moving parts. Tighter around the moving parts means that it will take more energy to move the tighter parts. The friction, heat and tight metals will wear the parts much quicker. The dirt and grime that you can't get off, fill the gaps and increases friction while decreasing power.
Energy = Power. The more power required to move the chain, the less horsepower is reaching the rear wheel. Eliminating these two issues allows the motor to pass more power through the drive sprocket, into the chain and out to the rear wheel. It's not making more horsepower, it's just reducing the loss of horsepower. When it's right, you or your rider, will notice a difference.
So let's move on to a better maintenance procedure and start living our moto-life with less fear of the evil, power-sucking chain.
Start with a good chain.
Don't skimp on the chain. Buy one that meets or exceeds the highest demands of motocross. There are several good ones out there with different options. Don't risk any type of failure for a gimmick. If you just gotta have a green chain, then buy one from a reputable manufacture. My friends over at moto-shack can lead you in the right direction. I don't like the o-ring chain for dirt-bikes, primarily because I tested one and found that it was heavy, robbed horsepower and was difficult to clean.
Pre-stretched chain solutions...? Hog-wash - just marketing hype, in my opinion, there is much more science to "why a chain loosens" other than it's tensile strength. Sprockets wear, each link wears, etc. In-fact I think the "stretching" of the chain is a desirable function of its wear life. When it stops stretching, it should be replaced because it's reached the breaking point. Again, just my opinion.
If you're buying a new chain, you should use this opportunity to inspect the sliders and rollers, but at least plan to replace the front and rear sprocket. The chain is really the quickest wear part of these three, but I often hear people say "My sprockets wear out before my chain". If you think about it, they all wear together. They are machined to work with each other, but as they work together, they wear together. So adding a new chain to already worn sprockets will cause them to wear quick as they "adjust themselves" to the chain again. Adjusting themselves to the chain again means wearing out more. It's just much easier to see the wear on a sprocket than it is on the chain. If you don't stay in front of this, you'll be replacing one of them all the time. If done right, you'll replace all of it less often, have less problems and most importantly, save money. Sometimes, I take the old setup and put it in an cleaned out butter dish with a little TWO2COOL chain lube and mark the hours on it (or the track setup). Then put that in my parts box and keep them as an emergency backup. I also do this if I know I am going to run significantly different tracks over a series and want different gearing setups. If your running over at Murphy's MX, but then you want to hit up a 20+1 Arenacross, your going to need a different gearing setup. This is a good way to manage that situation if your going to be making the change on the road.
What else can you do?
Pick the right lubricant.
Well here comes the sales pitch. No not really, but TWO2COOL has created a great product that addresses these issues. I am giving you my thoughts and opinion on it.
These people are at the top of their game and demand the best in regards to product and they are not afraid to say what they do and don't like about the product(s). People around them have years of experience in the industry.
TWO2COOL is keenly interested in producing the best product application(s) for racing conditions with a reasonable price break. I know this first hand, because I've been involved in it and used the chain lube during the R&D process. Their bottle of Chain Lube is under 10 bucks.
The application is non-aerosol. At first I wasn't sure if I would like it, but I quickly realised that I waste less, I don't get a bunch of overspray on the bike and a bottle of it lasts much longer. These things alone I liked, but I also had a little more control over the application and I found that to be valuable.
Like it's name sake, the TWO2COOL chain lube runs cooler by creating a layer of oil between the
metals and preventing the build up of friction heat. This improves power while reducing wear.
Since the product has a penetrating feature, it gets down into the crooks and crevices of the chain links. This displaces dirt and crud from those areas and allows the chain to move freely preventing it from robbing horsepower. Their specific formula has an "anti-sling" property which keeps it on the chain allowing it to continue to work throughout the entire moto without getting all over the bike.
Because it is not a wax or silicone based product, it is easier to clean up. I put a little fresh chain lube on top and run a few rotations through a grunge brush. It penetrates and displaces the dirt then I wipe the chain and sprockets off with a rag and repeat if necessary. Once I'm satisfied that its clean, I check the adjustment, put a fresh application of lube on and it's ready to go for the next moto.
I have been asked "how do you keep the chain so clean?" Well now you know. The light penetrating qualities of the lube allow it to assist in the cleaning process.
So that's my 2 cents on Managing the Chain Game. If you've read this far, thank you and I hope you learned something from it. Below is a 20% discount to try the chain lube in this article. I wanted to take a moment and thank TWO2COOL for putting this together.
1) Click the link below.
2) Add the chain lube to your cart
3) Where it asks for the "Coupon Code" enter "chaingame" without the quotes
4) Enjoy.
If you found this article helpful and like receiving discounts this way,
PLEASE like and share this article with your friends so they can enjoy it too.
THE BETTER THE RESPONSE THE MORE THEY WILL OFFER THIS KIND OF DISCOUNT
THE BETTER THE RESPONSE THE MORE THEY WILL OFFER THIS KIND OF DISCOUNT
Please use the #two2cool hashtag and link to us on facebook.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Click this TWO2COOL CHAIN LUBE link to take advantage of this offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment