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I have had a Henry's Final drive for a while, just got around to installing it and wanted to give my opinion as well as a few things I found on the way.
The point of the drive is higher gear ratios, so all the gears are moved up maybe half a gear or so. First will be be between where 1-2 is on a stock bike, 5th will move up probably about halfway to where a 6th would be. Higher top gear for me was the main reason I got this drive.
Here in the rural parts of Texas the freeway and highway speed is VERY fast. Most of the freeways and highways when you get away from towns are 75mph, and doing 95mph past cops without them pulling you over is standard. The only time either my wife or I have been pulled over out here was when she was clocked doing 98mph in a 70mph zone getting close to a town, she also had an expired drivers license, which they may or may not have noticed, and was let off with a verbal warning. When I rode up to Oklahoma a few months ago I bet my average speed over the 5 hours I was in Texas was slightly over 100mph, and the first 3 hours of that I didn't even see a freeway. Taller gears are VERY welcome here.
As a side benefit first gear is suddenly much more useable and less twitchy, but still has PLENTY of power, I used to feel that first gear ran out so fast that I could actually accelerate faster just skipping it and starting in second, this is no longer the case. I did not measure it, so I might be incorrect, but with the taller new gearing I feel like I could do a slightly faster 0-60 time than with the stock gearing, either with the stock 1-2 start or stock starting in second. Also, I noticed 2nd becomes a good relaxed in city gear now, as it can easily hang from very low speeds until well past 35mph, so I find I do less shifting between second and third in town.
I didnt check it right before this swap, but I do remember checking the speedo stock with a GPS and thinking it was fairly accurate. Now when the speedo says I am doing 25 I am actually doing 30, 50 speedo = 60 reality, 75 speedo = 90 reality.
It is my opinion, that outside of very specific use cases like Goldwing tow trucks (lol), this is the gearing all these bikes and the normal 2001-2017 Goldwings and F6Bs should have left the factory with.
The downside of the drive is that they almost $1,500 and Henry is a small manufacturer, so they are often sold out. You will also need something to recalibrate your speedometer.
As far as the actual changeover itself goes, it is mostly straightforward, just make sure you have a good stable motorcycle jack, most normal hand tools, locktite, a torque wrench, a #3 phillips impact driver, and some hypoid gear oil for the rear end. Mostly the install is straight forward and covered in the manual or the instructions Henry gives you, but two things that were kinda gotchas for me were:
Dont try to remove the two #3 phillips head screws that hold the rear brake rotor onto the final drive while the assembly is on the bike. Take out the whole assembly, put the stock final drive on something solid, and give the screws a few whacks with an impact driver set to loosen, mine were VERY tight. If you strip one of those screws it turns into a HUGE pain to remove it, as the brake rotor where the screw goes in is aluminum and the screw is mild steel. A new rear brake disk is between $600-$700 from Honda. Just dont chance it. Henry recommends replacing those two screws, I reused mine.
There is something in Henry's directions about the connecting shaft into the final drive first and make sure it is seated before sliding the end of the splined shaft into the tranny output side in the tunnel. I don't really see how that would be possible, I slid the splined end into the output shaft in the tunnel first, then onto the final drive. Henry says to replace the seal and the spring clip at the end of that transfer shaft that goes into the final drive. Mine looked fine so I reused them.
Henry's drive when it first came in:
The new drive in place:
Old drive getting set aside as a spare:
Overall I am quite happy with this modification for my circumstances, but for the cost I dont think I would have budgeted this if I lived somewhere that freeway speeds were more normal.
The point of the drive is higher gear ratios, so all the gears are moved up maybe half a gear or so. First will be be between where 1-2 is on a stock bike, 5th will move up probably about halfway to where a 6th would be. Higher top gear for me was the main reason I got this drive.
Here in the rural parts of Texas the freeway and highway speed is VERY fast. Most of the freeways and highways when you get away from towns are 75mph, and doing 95mph past cops without them pulling you over is standard. The only time either my wife or I have been pulled over out here was when she was clocked doing 98mph in a 70mph zone getting close to a town, she also had an expired drivers license, which they may or may not have noticed, and was let off with a verbal warning. When I rode up to Oklahoma a few months ago I bet my average speed over the 5 hours I was in Texas was slightly over 100mph, and the first 3 hours of that I didn't even see a freeway. Taller gears are VERY welcome here.
As a side benefit first gear is suddenly much more useable and less twitchy, but still has PLENTY of power, I used to feel that first gear ran out so fast that I could actually accelerate faster just skipping it and starting in second, this is no longer the case. I did not measure it, so I might be incorrect, but with the taller new gearing I feel like I could do a slightly faster 0-60 time than with the stock gearing, either with the stock 1-2 start or stock starting in second. Also, I noticed 2nd becomes a good relaxed in city gear now, as it can easily hang from very low speeds until well past 35mph, so I find I do less shifting between second and third in town.
I didnt check it right before this swap, but I do remember checking the speedo stock with a GPS and thinking it was fairly accurate. Now when the speedo says I am doing 25 I am actually doing 30, 50 speedo = 60 reality, 75 speedo = 90 reality.
It is my opinion, that outside of very specific use cases like Goldwing tow trucks (lol), this is the gearing all these bikes and the normal 2001-2017 Goldwings and F6Bs should have left the factory with.
The downside of the drive is that they almost $1,500 and Henry is a small manufacturer, so they are often sold out. You will also need something to recalibrate your speedometer.
As far as the actual changeover itself goes, it is mostly straightforward, just make sure you have a good stable motorcycle jack, most normal hand tools, locktite, a torque wrench, a #3 phillips impact driver, and some hypoid gear oil for the rear end. Mostly the install is straight forward and covered in the manual or the instructions Henry gives you, but two things that were kinda gotchas for me were:
Dont try to remove the two #3 phillips head screws that hold the rear brake rotor onto the final drive while the assembly is on the bike. Take out the whole assembly, put the stock final drive on something solid, and give the screws a few whacks with an impact driver set to loosen, mine were VERY tight. If you strip one of those screws it turns into a HUGE pain to remove it, as the brake rotor where the screw goes in is aluminum and the screw is mild steel. A new rear brake disk is between $600-$700 from Honda. Just dont chance it. Henry recommends replacing those two screws, I reused mine.
There is something in Henry's directions about the connecting shaft into the final drive first and make sure it is seated before sliding the end of the splined shaft into the tranny output side in the tunnel. I don't really see how that would be possible, I slid the splined end into the output shaft in the tunnel first, then onto the final drive. Henry says to replace the seal and the spring clip at the end of that transfer shaft that goes into the final drive. Mine looked fine so I reused them.
Henry's drive when it first came in:
The new drive in place:
Old drive getting set aside as a spare:
Overall I am quite happy with this modification for my circumstances, but for the cost I dont think I would have budgeted this if I lived somewhere that freeway speeds were more normal.