| Author | Message | ||
     Dman |
Did the swap; CR swingarm onto my 2008 R, details below - Parts needed: CR swingarm (duh) CR belt CR sprocket CR pullet bracket (pulleys are the same) CR left side peg mount (surprise!) Erik Buell Racing ECM for CR (optional, solves for gear change & gets a nice tune) Cost: net cost with badweb discount & selling my old R swingarm was about $450. Plus the $250 for the Erik Buell Racing ECM for a CR, which is optional, but was my 2 birds with 1 stone approach. Erik Buell Racing confirmed the CR ECM only difference from the R ECM is the gear ratio, so the CR ECM was what I wanted if swapping the gearing, love those guys. Swap: the swingarm swap was as easy as I expected, probably an hour to 90 mins, to get wheel off old arm off, new arm on, double checking everything, pulley bracket & belt change is cake as well. Only snag was discovering that I needed the footpeg bracket. The CR pulley bracket WILL NOT fit on an R. I got stuck & asked Erik Buell Racing, once again they were to the rescue & explained I needed that peg bracket for a CR also, got it, swapped it & everything bolted right up. Also, Erik Buell Racing explained that the belt is unidirectional, I didn't know that either, due to the threads in the belt it should be put on so you can read the writing on the belt when standing on the left side of the bike, when installed this way the belt will gently walk to the inside of the sprocket, versus walking a bit to the outside. Overall it's a pretty easy swap, if not for the unknown peg bracket requirement it would've been about 3hrs total at an easy pace. Off with the old Camparison of swingarm lengths On with new New swingarm on Installed Installed view two Impressions: Happy camper. I've been on liter sport bikes since 1989 and have pretty much always re-geared to -1,+2 (front,rear) on my bikes which is where I love it, this swap is very close to that. With the Erik Buell Racing ECM, the bike really gets a lot smoother, than with the gearing change it puts strong snap back into the low end, so IMO you get the best of both worlds, very smooth snappy feel. I'm thrilled with the results. BTW, I also installed Lightning pegs, amazing the improvement, this bike so comfortable & these pegs still lok super racey and match the passenger pegs, cheap & 5 mins with the dremmel tool & FTW. | ||
| Dannybuell |
Nice work and excellent documentation. THX | ||
| Augustus74 |
Agreed. Maybe Ill start collecting the parts for a wintertime swap. | ||
| No_rice |
hey, i see alot of my parts!!! | ||
| Mattj |
how is the swing arm different. I thought you just needed the rear sprocket, tensioner pulley and belt. | ||
| Nillaice |
Mattj, -ahem- i haven't invested the time to fully read and understand what you wrote, but i have a question for you: do you realize that you've just made countless badwebbers face-palm? | ||
| Nillaice |
Dman, nice job. and im glad you got it done for such a reasonable price. i wanted to do this when i first got mine at the fire-sale, but didn't wanna shell out the $. i hope i can find someone to swap with ... i'd pay shipping do you plan on painting it to match the frame or 'murdering out' the frame to match the swingarm? | ||
| Father_of_an_era |
What is the reason behind the swap? | ||
| Dman |
"hey, i see alot of my parts!!!" - yepper, thanks, Tim, great price & parts. "how is the swing arm different. I thought you just needed the rear sprocket, tensioner pulley and belt." - if you check the photo I put up on the swingarm comparison, look close & you can see the difference in length, about 1/4 inch. As for parts, you need everything I list, as confirmed by Erik Buell Racing, otherwise things won't align correctly in the drivetrain, as I found firsthand. "do you plan on painting it to match the frame " - I was thinking of something, but when I mocked it up it actually looks good as is, with the black plastics in the rear the black swingarm looks good, thing I do want to clean up is the CR footpeg bracket is black so it doesn't match the other side or the heal guard. "What is the reason behind the swap?" - for the shorter gearing, I prefer a zippier feel to my bikes, the shorter gear makes them "quicker" in the low-end, where I spend all my riding time, at the trade-off of some top-end max speed. | ||
| Duphuckincati |
Nice thing (in a real world) about the CR "gearing" (pully-ing?) is a sweet spot road speed of around 75-80mph. Had a Triumph Sprint ST 955 and that would lull you into a sweet spot of 115mph. Too much paranoia. | ||
| Nillaice |
   patience is a virtue. now that i've invested all this time trolloing ebay and finally getting off my ass, it is done. now i can go slower, faster! LULz | ||
| Nillaice |
BTT? | ||
| Froggy |
You need to say the magic word after BTT.  | ||
| Nillaice |
please and thankyou, Froggy thats a NEAT trick!!!!! what the heck are you doing in the archives?, or am i on your 'watch list'? or are you just 'ONE with the BADWEBz'? | ||
| Sportster_mann |
Dman wrote -
You would have thought that if the belt orientation was important that they would have mentioned it in the service manual ! | ||
| Froggy |
When someone posts in the archive, it sends me an email, and if I get around to it I check the post out and will bump if needed.
That is interesting, its the first I've heard of it too. | ||
| Dman |
Welcome to the swap club. LoL Yea I was surprised by the belt direction instruction too, but I just listened to the wizards of Buell. | ||
| Kaotikevo |
interesting swap, something to consider for me too. I'll largely use mine as a commuter when the snow melts, and the taller gears on the r do seem "uninspired" when not twistin her up. Thanks for posting, good write up. | ||
| Bwbhighspl |
Here's a similar how-to: http://www.buellxb.com/Buell-XB-Forum/Buell-1125R/ CR-gearing-on-a-R-conversion And you have to ask the question....what if you started with a CR, and then swap out the bars so it's more like an R, swap out the windscreen so it's more like an R....and that's it. | ||
| Nillaice |
red93stang referenced this thread when i PM'd him about it. LOLz he beat me to the ebay auction on those parts. but i found another set from CO a few weeks later. | ||
| Nillaice |
i finally tally'd it all up peg and idler brackets 62.99 swingarm 201.99 belt and pulley 203.50 can of phantom black 27.00 EeeiBeeaaRgh ECM Y0184.10AZ 259.68 all prices shipped yep, that's a grand total of $755.16 i must be crazy to have dumped all that on a perfectly good bike. i still have the R swing arm, R belt, (2) 70T sprockets, and a rear disc that i can sell to recover a small portion of the funds invested. ... | ||
| Curve_carver |
I was told that you could pick up a belt and sprocket and have a custom pulley made? I think he said it was 5/8" od bigger . A 5/16"sleeve that would press over the original idler would be an awesome product if this was the case. Sleeve 100.00 ? New Belt 170.00 used pulley 80? Just a thought? | ||
| Nillaice |
yep, mike1125R ran that set-up. and another fellow (his name escapes me right now) ran a rubber mounted tensioner inplace of the idler pulley. | ||
| Mike1125r |
I had a custom oversized aluminum cnc pulley made.You don't need a tensioner with this. The new pulley just replaces the stock pulley. This allows me to keep the stock swing arm. All I needed was a cr rear sprocket and cr belt.  | ||
| Curve_carver |
Do you remember off hand what the O.D. was? I was seriously considering your mod. I used the search function and found this pic awhile back. I even thought about a sleeve that is pressed on? | ||
| Mike1125r |
I don't know remember the measurement of the stock pulley. Whatever you make, it needs to be 3/4" larger than stock. This will give you good tension even when the belt stretches. I ran this on my 08 race bike and now on my street 09 1125r with no issues!!! | ||
| Tougelabs |
Mike can you have another pulley made ? I'm sure the guy that cnc'd the pulley still has the file "crosses fingers" | ||
| Tomseliga |
i want 1 too!! |
