Took my first ride on a Sportster today; and decided she is going to be mine.

Lucky for me, the bike came with a Tacho as well as the standard speedo (in kilometres of course; I'm in Australia)

I noticed that gear changes seemed a little chunky, as if my rpm was too low .....I am assuming that the Sportster is built to rev alot higher than I was pushing her on the test ride; with the SE muffler perhaps the noise deterred me a little from winding her out the way she wanted to be...

The bike hadn't been ridden in 8 months, so could it just be a matter of giving her a good run in ordeer toget those pistons nice and wet ??

My other question is; what is the ideal rpm to be changing through gears? I was changing around 4500, and obviously she wanted to go alot bigger..

Any info or a rough guide to rpm through gears 1-5 would be most welcome..

It's a 2000 Sportster 883, SE Exhaust. Sounds like it should.

[IMG]local://upfiles/48814/31CDA9CF8F36448FB72BBF5B6A078BFD.jpg[/IMG]

 

Base your shifting on sound of the engine, and feel, just ride and you'll get the feel in no time. It depends on riding conditions, weight of rider/passenger, amount of acceleration and stuff like that. Do yourself a favor and don't look at the tach, to me it's just another dummy light, it's not a sure fire way to tell you when to shift. Of the 5 bikes I own, only one ever had a tach, and the only time i payed attention to it was for tunning the idle, Other than that tachs are not needed with the exception of some of the rice-burners that you can't hear or feel the engine.

 

As drum said, you can ride based on the sound, and will likely end up doing that most of the time.

Unless the ignition has been modified on your bike, it has a rev limiter. I don't know what that is on a 2000 model, on a 2005 it is 6,000, but earlier bikes had lower limits. To the uninitiated ear, the motor will sound like it is comming apart by the time you hit the limit.

Shifting on a sportster can sound a little clunky anyway. I think that you need to keep the revs above 2,500 to avoid lugging, and this means they should run to a minimum of 3,000 before shifting.

Cruising steady below 2,500 won't hurt the bike, and at legal highway speeds in 5th, it may be below that. However, good acceleration will require a downshift from that point.

 

Thanks guys,

From the sounds of it, I was probably being a little rough with the clutch....I think I was changing around 4000 rpm, which seems about right based on what you've said, so perhaps I may squeeze a little more instead of race changing like I have been, growing up on trail bikes...any other opinions out there will be appreciated.

Cheers lads

 

I like the clunk of going into gear. Some people want shifting to be as quiet as theirBmer. Sucks to be them.

The MOCO gives speeds to shift at in the owners manual. They will have you shift up at 2500 and down at 2000 rpm.

My 2002 red lines at ~6100 rpm. I will shift anywhere from 2700 to 6100 depending on what I am doing.

I've heard rumors that the tranny & shifting is quieter if you use a synthetic oil. I have not tried this.

 

I got my bike used and the speedo wasnt working, I learned to shift by liistening to the engine. Basically if it shudders in the next gear you shifted too early, and next time wait a little

now that I got a working speedo it changes everything, mainly stuff like coming off Freeway onramps, 20MPH can feel like 30, and you can be in the wrong gear, so the speedo helps.

1st gear 0MPH - 20MPH
2nd gear 20MPH -35MPH
3rd gear 35MPH -45-MPH
4th gear 45MPH - 120MPH haha

you dont really need the speedo, its pretty much to set idle speed and to look nice when you rev the bike. just remember dont make the bike shudder in the next gear, then your lugging it.

 

I heard synthetic messes with the clutch, that it needs the friction of conventional oil to work properly

 

I posted a chart showing the speed vs rpm on this post. I can easily change the input if you know your sprocket sizes.

https://www.hdforums.com/m_2575886/tm.htm

 

Synthetic fluid won't hurt the clutch pack in the least, but you do need to be careful of using products with 'friction modifiers'.

What you need to look for is a product that has a JASO-MA rating, which means no (or very little) friction modifers have been added.

Both Amsoil 20W-50 and Mobil 1 20W-50 V-Twin have the JASO-MA rating.

That being said, most people I know are running the Mobil 1 75W-90 Gear Lube in the Sportster tranny/primary, and have not experience any clutch related problems. Some have been running it for over 80,000 miles.