RPM while cruising at 80mph

Now thinking a bit more about it you could have a new gearbox designed , manufactured and installed for about the price difference between the two bikes so I say go for it
Every-time someone starts complaining about this or that please for a second compare the price difference between the items.
Rockets are not designed to be the smoothest bike on the road they are built for one reason only pure grunt now riders try and soften them up with windshields, radios etc etc but it is a bike for the hard rider not the Sunday cruiser.
 

There ya go with the windshields again. I want under the bonnet pictures of your car. There better not be a girly man air conditioner compressor under there !
 

Patrick, sorry to hear the trans gremlin has followed you. Not really sure what's going on with the later roadster transmissions. They seem to end up with bent shift forks from what I'm reading. Not sure if they're getting knackered during assembly by some ham handed limey() or what. As you may know I had my gears backcut and the shaft grooves widened to accept heavy duty circlips. That should take most of the side loading off the shift forks and circlips. I'm reluctant to advice anyone else of doing this until I have some long term data. There has been talk of removing the surface hardening when backcutting. Whether this shortens the life span of the gears is yet to be seen. When you say knocking, does it feel like the gears are going in and out of mesh ? Like the side engagement dogs are slipping past each other ?
 
What I want to know is when you can do zero on the speedo twice why does it only go up to 145

Seriously though if all your looking for is a different ratio I believe the helical gear on the trans output shaft has one more tooth then the helical gear on the input of the torsional damper. That area if possible might be the best place to look at changing the ratio. It will affect all gears though.
 
I don't get it .Gears ,really? Heck I can pass harley in 5th, or tractor trailer at 80mph and no need to down shift. If it was a harley they downshift 2 gears just to get around a tractor trailer, And I like my windshield, thank you very much!!
 
The gears IMO are not suface hardened they are completely heat treated and then tempered to achieve proper grain structure. Again its my opinion after many years of heat treating experience. They probably have a mixture of temperd martensitic and bainite microstructure.
 

Uhhh, what he said