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Reading Gear Ratios

Determining speed potential
By: James R. Davis

While reading my owner's manual a few days ago I came across a chart that
listed my gear ratios in a section entitled: Power Transmission. It showed:
Primary reduction 1.708
Secondary reduction 0.973
Gear ratio, 1st 2.571
2nd 1.667
3rd 1.250
4th 1.000
OD 0.800
Final reduction 2.833
I also found that the engine in my bike redlines at 7,500 RPM and that my
rear tire is a '150/90-15 74H'
From that information I was able to construct a pretty healthy understanding
of shift points, speed ranges and maximum theoretical speed of the
motorcycle. This article is designed to help you do the same with your own
bike.
First, let's look at the power transmission. The primary and secondary
reduction ratios mean that the revolutions made by your engine have been
reduced by two sets of gears BEFORE it gets to your transmission. You must
divide the engine's RPM by the product of these two ratios in order to
determine how fast the input shaft to your transmission is turning.
For example, since the product you get by multiplying 1.708 and .973 is
approximately 1.662, if the engine is making 2,000 RPM, then the input to
your transmission is turning at the rate of 1,203 RPM (2,000/1.662).
The output of your transmission is then determined by what gear you are in.
For example, if you are in 3rd gear, the output from your transmission is
approximately 963 RPM (1,203/1.25).
And that output is reduced one more time by a set of gears in your rear-end
so that the rear wheel will be spinning at the rate of approximately 340 RPM

(963/2.833).
So? How fast your bike is moving at any particular engine RPM, I imagine, is
what you are really interested in. That, of course, is a function of the radius
of the rear wheel.
You could, if your bags were not in the way, simply measure from the center
of your rear hub HORIZONTALLY to the tread to find the radius of the tire.
(Note, this gets you a number close to the radius you would obtain from the
information printed on the tire - and is accurate enough so long as you run
with normal air pressure. If you run with low tire pressure then your tire will
actually not be riding on the tread center-line at all but somewhere farther
out. In other words, because of cambered design, the tread center-line will
be sloughing against the pavement while the tire along the outside edges of
the contact patch (which are closer to the hub of the wheel) will determine
distance traveled.)
But from the information in your owner's manual you already have most of
the information you need and, given normal air pressure in your tires, will be
accurate enough to calculate speed from. The '-15' means that the rim the
tire fits on has a diameter of 15 inches. The '150' means that the tire is 150
mm wide and the '90' means that its height is 90% of its width, giving a
height from tread to bead of 135 mm. 135 mm is 5.31 inches. Thus, the
radius of the rear tire is 5.31 inches plus 1/2 the wheel diameter of 15
inches, for a total of 12.81 inches.
From high school you remember a formula that determines circumference
based on radius. You decide that you would rather ride a motorcycle instead
of multiplying PI times twice the radius and converting the results from
minutes and inches to miles and hours at this point in your life. So, I present
you with a straight forward formula for converting engine RPM, final gear
ratio and tire radius into MPH:

MPH = (Engine RPM * Radius) / (Final Gear Ratio * 168)

The 'Final Gear Ratio' is merely the product of all gear ratios involved. Thus,
in our example it is 5.885 (1.708 * .973 * 1.25 * 2.833).
We can now use the formula:
MPH = (2,000 * 12.81) / (5.885 * 168)

MPH = 25,620 / 988.68

MPH = 25.91
At 2,000 RPM, in 3rd gear, your bike is moving at almost 26 MPH. It is just
as easy to determine that if the engine were redlined (7,500 RPM) in 3rd
gear your speed would be slightly more than 91 MPH.
The reason a tachometer is marked with a red band near its top end is that
running your engine at those speeds yields a power falloff and may do
damage to it! Further, your power curve tends to fall off as the engine RPM
approaches redline. [You can damage your engine running it at lower than
its redline - the redline is NOT a damage/no-damage point.] So, you are well
advised to keep your engine RPM at less than about 80% of redline. In the
case of my bike, that means at less than about 6,000 RPM.
Similarly, running an engine too slowly lugs it down because the power curve
is not adequate there. Since most motorcycles idle at about 1,000 RPM,
which is just barely sufficient to keep it from stalling, you know that you
want to keep your motor running faster than that in order to accelerate. My
preference follows the 80/20 rule. That is, just as I want to keep my engine
running less than 80% of redline, I want to keep it running faster than 20%
of redline while moving. That means that I want my engine running between
1,500 and 6,000 RPM except when out of gear.
Furthermore, it is my preference to try to keep the engine at 50% of my
conservative redline. That is, at 50% of 6,000 RPM. At 3,000 RPM my engine
should last forever. And, in the case of running in Overdrive, it is a high
enough RPM that the power curve is sufficient to accelerate.
I leave it to the reader to take the formula I provided in order to determine
the highest speed their bikes are theoretically capable of attaining. I might
add, however, that the higher the gear, the less likely you are able to reach
redline with your engine. But you should be able to reach my conservative
redline (80%).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_speed_rpm.htm

Speed versus RPM Calculator

Speed versus RPM Calculator

RPM

Engine Speed
Transmission Gear Ratio

:1
:1

Differential Gear Ratio

inches

Loaded Tire Radius

Reset

Vehicle Speed

MPH

Copyright 2007-2012, Richard Shelquist

Tire Expansion:
There is a potential for error in these calculations with bias-belted tires due to centrifugal force
expansion of the tire at high speeds, but that effect is generally negligible for radial-ply tires due
to the circumferential belts used in their construction. To get accurate results, racers using biasply tires should check with their tire supplier to determine how much the tire radius will change
at various speeds.
Calculator Equations:
For those who are curious about the calculations, here are the gory details of the speed versus
engine RPM calculations:
Each revolution of the engine is reduced by the transmission gear ratio, each revolution of the
output shaft of the transmission is reduced by the rear-end ratio, and each revolution of the tire
makes the car move a distance equal to the circumference of the tire. Pretty simple really.
Let's go thru the calculations to create an equation for the vehicle speed...
First, let's define the meaning of the gear ratios:

Transmission Gear Ratio (R1): denotes how many engine revolutions there are for each
driveshaft revolution.
Differential Gear Ratio (R2): denotes how many driveshaft revolutions there are for each
axle revolution.
Now, we'll derive the equation:
If the engine speed (for this example) RPM = 6000 revolutions/minute,
then the driveshaft speed is the engine speed divided by tranny gear ratio R1 = ( 6000 / R1)
revolutions/minute,
and the rear axle speed is the driveshaft speed divided by rear-end ratio R2 = ( 6000 /
(R1*R2) ) revolutions per minute.
(Note: the symbol * indicates multiplication, and / indicates division)
So, the rear tire will be making 6000 / (R1*R2) revolutions each minute, causing the car to
move forward (2*pi*r) * ( 6000 / (R1*R2) ) inches/minute (where r is the loaded tire
radius in inches, and 2*pi = 6.28).
That is, the car will be moving ( 6000 * 6.28 * r) / (R1*R2) inches per minute.
Since 1 mile = 5280 feet = 63,360 inches, and 1 hour = 60 minutes, then the conversion
from inches per minute to miles per hour is ( 60 / 63,360 ).
So, if the engine is turning 6000 rev/min then the car must be going (60 / 63,360) *
( ( 6000 * 6.28 * r) / (R1*R2) miles/hour.
Rewriting that all into a tidy form:
(0.00595) * (RPM * r) / (R1 * R2) = vehicle speed in miles/hour
where:
RPM = engine speed, in revolutions/minute
r = loaded tire radius (wheel center to pavement), in inches
R1 = transmission gear ratio
R2 = rear axle ratio
Example:
SCCA Ford Spec Racer RPM = 6000

transmission gear ratio R1 = 0.73 in high gear

rear end ratio R2 = 3.62
loaded tire radius r = 10.9 inches
The car's speed at 6000 RPM in high gear will be:
(0.00595) * ( 6000 * 10.9) / (0.73 * 3.62) = 147 miles/hour

Enjoy!

How do different Differential gear ratios

affect top speed?
Answer:
Lower differential gear ratios, such as a 4.11 for example will help you get
up to speed sooner in all gears, but your top speed will be limited vs a
differential gear ratio of 3.08. In other words more torque less speed, less
torque more speed. 4.11 for example means that your drive shaft from
the transmission to the rear end spinns 4 times for every 1 time your tire
does one complete rotation. If the rear end gear ratio was 3.08 instead of
4.11, the your driveshaft would rotate 3 times for every 1 time the tire did
one complete rotation. So the engine would rev less in the final gear at
the same speed, but there would be less torque. The weight of your
vehicle, the amount of torque and horsepower your engine puts out and
the type of transmission and the amount and type of gears it has also
determines alot.