this is how to upgrade to a lighter 520 chain and sprockets and lightweight rear
rotor using an Aprilia rsv4 RF 1100 Factory as the model bike
it's easy to look at this project and start with the rear wheel because it's more exposed and you
kind of start thinking well I got to get this off and everything but in this case what you actually
want to do is leave everything back here alone and start with the front sprocket the reason for
that is because you have to get that sprocket nut loose and to do that it's going to be much easier
if the rear wheel is in place and held down to the ground it's going to give you a little bit more
leverage in backing off and tightening that front sprocket so the first thing you want to do is get
access to that which means removing our cover so I'm going to take these three screws out the top
screw is actually longer than the other two screws so make sure to lay them out in order so that you
remember which ones go where it looks like we're going to take that shift arm off of there as well
all right so I'm just going to take that little pinch bolt loose a little bit right down there
and then what I'm going to do is take the marker and I'm going to put a mark across the center of
the shaft and the arm so they can see that those two line up when I put it back on so maybe I have
to take that loose first there we go there's actually a couple O-rings and then the spacers
so get them all put in place got to take the screw all the way out because it's hiding in that Groove
then this comes off put the screw back in so you don't lose it
there we go okay now the sprocket covers off
put that aside there's our front sprocket bolt that we want to get off
the reason we left the rear down is because if you try to turn this with just a normal wrench
what's going to happen is that it's going to turn that turn the chain and turn the whole wheel
unless you have either a buddy hitting the rear brake to hold the rear wheel still then maybe
or you can also try to pry something through here that will force the wheel to stay still up against
a swing arm but then you might damage your wheel or swing arm as well what I use is an air ratchet
because that to me is the easiest way I can do it with less leverage back here at the tire
make sure it's going the right way
okay
and make sure you have all the washers that came with it and now your sprocket is free to come
off but you have to get the chain off first so now we've got to break the chain I have another
video that shows how to use one of these chain tools so I won't show that detail here but the
link to that is in the description below now our chain is broke so we can slowly remove that
and I got to get this back in oh I got to get the bike back in neutral
which is a little bit difficult because I took this off
so I have to put this back on just gently
okay and now it's in neutral so I can get that old chain off old chain off to the side
now my sprocket will come off in the front you see that now at this point I'm going to put the
rear stand up because I want that tire to rotate so that I can do what I need back here now that
the rear is in the air the next thing I want to do is change out the rear sprocket now this bike has
already been fitted with BST carbon fiber wheels so it's a little bit different if you have a stock
bike but the principle is the same you get the sprocket off of there change it to your new 520
sprocket and I'm also going to be changing to the lighter weight rear rotor so got to get the
axle nut off there's the nut and there is a washer underneath so make sure to capture both of those
I like to put a little bit of Leverage underneath here just makes it a little bit easier you don't
have to hold the whole tire this way okay I'm going to push the pin out the other side
make sure to support the wheel while you pull the pin out
make sure you're clearing everything as far as your brakes and all that goes
and get that tire out of there now the first thing we'll do because it's easy
as we'll change that brake rotor you'll do a star pattern like any other wheel project
there's the five loosened I go ahead and just take the bolts out all the way
as I take this last screw out what you'll notice is that you've got your encoder wheel and this is
for your analog brake system and all the computer gadgetry that's what the system uses to look at
wheel rotation speed so that's important make sure it goes back in the same way which is with
the dish kind of out in the middle not that way that comes off just for the hell of it I'm going
to go weigh these two to see how much weight I'm actually saving all right first the stock rotor
1.7285 pounds and then the new one is 0.929 pounds
so a little bit of weight savings anyway and it's rotating Mass which is always good now we'll take
our new rotor and there was some Loctite on the bolt so I'll go ahead and use some on this as well
I'm going to use a drop of red on each one because a brake rotor can get hot
so anywhere where I see heat applied I'm more likely going to use red Than Blue we
want to put our encoder on there as well get them about right before they actually start
touching the encoder plate and we'll start snugging them star pattern again it's a
good idea to get the torque wrench out for things like this make sure it's done right
all right there's that flip the wheel around to the other side
now I'll just take sprocket carrier assembly over to the bench and swap that out with the new 520.
they're both super lights as you can tell so there won't be much for weight savings
since they're very similar all right I took the old sprocket off with the new 520 sprocket on
this particular with the bsts has that kind of gasket in between
put that back in place that's good we've got the old rotor off the new lighter
weight rotor in place everything is torqued and happy so I can put this back in place
sometimes these sometimes this rear brake rotor can be kind of a pain
kind of visualize the wind here there we go always make sure you check and that rotor is between the
two pads where you want it before I put the axle back through put a little bit of Grease around it
now we'll line up the brake caliper I'm going to go through the swing arm that kind of holds
your tongue right here there we go have the axle through there and it's centered in the
block and then that block has a straight edge up against the axle adjuster now what we want
to do is start with the chain as far forward as we can so that we have room to bring it back
I do like a longer wheelbase just because it's less likely to wheelie on you but a shorter
one will give you quicker turns so really what we're trying to do is make it short
enough so that you have room as the chain stretches you can move back in the axle box
let's take a look at this new chain and make sure it's rated for the bike you have this is a pretty
high grade one you want to make sure especially when you're going down in size like a 520 it's a
lighter construction so you want to make sure that it's rated for something with this much power oh
pretty you can also compare this one to the old one and try to cut it about the same length but
you want to make real sure that you don't cut it too short by accident so I'll just do it this way
all right both axle adjusters have the anti-seize and are run all the way in so I can move the wheel
as far forward as it'll go from both sides now on this particular bike see that slot and that
pin right there it's as far forward as it can go so even though the axle looks like it could go
further it actually can't because the brake caliper is limited it's all the way forward
so it's all the way up and we'll slide it back until we get the chain position right so let's
get our new front sprocket and we're going to put a little bit of anti-seize on that pinion shaft
now this is exactly why it's so important to pay such close attention when you're
working on bikes this is the sprocket Factory that came off the bike in that orientation
this is the new sprocket every sprocket bearing everything I've ever seen you always install
with the numbers facing out so that you can go back and see what part it is or how many
teeth it had or whatever without removing it however if I do that you can see the teeth are
going to be offset from the stock it now yes they're thinner but they're way offset
the only way to make it work is to put it this way you still want it about as dead nuts as you
can with how it was before so if you just blindly install something just because everything you've
ever seen in your career shows you that's the way to do it you have to check parts and make
sure stuff is going to work so that's how the new sprocket will go on is this way
now I'm going to take some anti-seize and put it around the drive
pinion shaft whatever you want to call it here again just like the axle adjusters it's
a good idea to have this in there just because you don't want stuff binding
and again we're putting it on the unconventional way but the way to get the right
offset and now for the pinion Bolt this is a engine part so I'm going to put a drop of red
Loctite on it I'm going to just put the bolt in Loosely I'm not going to tighten it yet because
I want to have the chain and everything connected to use that tire is sort of some leverage to keep
it all still while I'm torquing it down let's see what we've got for a chain length now with
this chain guard might be easier to slide back this way and then catch it back here
okay and then we want to go forward around our new front gear here and again it's a neutral
and what I try to do is I'll get it around on the rear sprocket and then see where we want
to cut it all right so with everything as far forward as it can be but right there it
looks like that's the pin we want to knock out and then what we'll do is put the master link
in there so that's the pin we want to knock out make real sure you got the right one put
a black circle around it that's the one we want so now we'll get our chain tool back and we'll
go ahead and push that pin out if we line these up we can see right there that we have a nice
spot and we can put that master link in there and Off to the Races now I want to see what
the chain weighs compared to the old one just to see what my weight savings are and here's the old
one 4.97 new chain 4.017 pounds and I always install These Chains with the wording facing
vertical normal on the top layer feeding back in here again now to install the master link
now that we've got our new chain on we've got our master link properly riveted and now
we're ready to start tightening the chain we're going to start with the chain side
first because that's where the chain is and then we'll catch up the other side to where this goes
then I'm going to kind of hit the back tire a little bit to make sure it's all
the way forward a lot of your bikes have this gauge down here across the bottom
and it helps you see where that block is so you can get it right visually on the other side
all right just for a check I measured the distance on the marks to make sure I wasn't getting
confused made sure it's the same on both sides yes I know this looks ridiculous but if you want to
check your chain properly you really need to have the weight of the gear considered so I've got my
helmet my gloves my suit my boots and I'm going to drape over the seat as you may have seen me do
in videos before to Sag the bike enough with the wheels on the ground to see what my chain slack is
that looks good now what we want to do is tighten the axle adjusters which means I put
this wrench here and I know that I have a point facing straight outward
sometimes you'll end up on a flat this one's a point so I know that's the position I want
I'm going to tighten this guy
do the same on the other side all right that's good
and like I said that chain is going to stretch a little bit it's within spec but it'll loosen
up and I'll redo it at some point need to tighten our axle time to get out the torque wrench again
okay properly torqued now we just got to do the front sprocket and put that all back together
since I'm done back here I'm going to lower this back on the ground
so that it'll kind of have some bite against that sprocket when I'm tightening it kickstand down yet
all right I'm going to tighten this guy
and that's got the red Loctite on it so our drive system is done
just got to put the cover back on now I got some gunk in there I'm going to try to clean out of it
point and putting dirty Parts back on oh yeah that's going to come off there we go we have
our three bolts here and six okay those are done now put the shift arm back and whatever
black mark that we have to remember to follow so it goes back in the same place if you don't
do things like that you might have problems with your quick shifter all right now we got this on
and the lines are perfectly lined up got our little side screw to put through there
and you want this outside edge flush which should put that screw right in the groove
all right the next we want to do is capture this one now remember we had kind of this spacer and
the two O-rings and everything to use on that fastener book does say it wants some Loctite
put some Loctite in let that dry okay now you want to take the spacer and o-ring on the back side and
have this o-ring on the front side run it through that and start snugging that up there we go
and that wraps up the install of the lightweight 520 chain with the
lightweight rear brake rotor as well so now the only thing to do is go out and ride and enjoy it
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