6 Speed Manual Smoothness?

[michaelks]

Could be...anyway, the recommended oil is 10W30, so i don't know if going higher is safe. I use Motul 5100 semisynth on the XR250 and previous bikes as well, but can't find the 30 grade here, only 50, which is what most bikes use.
I still haven't found the time to try it out after adding the Militec to the oil, will post back if i find a difference.

 

[dduelin]

Could be...anyway, the recommended oil is 10W30, so i don't know if going higher is safe. I use Motul 5100 semisynth on the XR250 and previous bikes as well, but can't find the 30 grade here, only 50, which is what most bikes use.
I still haven't found the time to try it out after adding the Militec to the oil, will post back if i find a difference.

The NC700X service manual recommends 10w30 or 10w40 from -10 to 110F.

 

[michaelks]

Definitely our service manuals are not the same, our brazilian edition mentions only 10W30 as the recommended oil. And this is a hot climate.

 

[Daniszeman]

Well, for me - when I first got the bike, and for the first 2,000 miles, I just shifted at what I thought was normal, usually around 3k rpm for each shift. However, after reading the manual, I noticed that it listed the recommended shift changes(based on mph/kmh). After following the recommended guidelines - the bike shifts much smoother. In fact, if I put enough attention into shifting, I can get it to a point where I don't even feel the shifting happening, and I only hear it. Before, for the first 2k miles, it was a bit more choppy.

 

[Cutter J. Duke]

Maybe someone with a service manual can look this up, every bike I've ever had that was "crunchy" going into first had straight cut gear engagement dogs. My NC has a crunchy first gear from neutral, I'm going in for my 600 mile service soon and was going to ask the tech what he thought was up because I know hes got more gear case experience than I.

 

[L.B.S.]

Maybe someone with a service manual can look this up, every bike I've ever had that was "crunchy" going into first had straight cut gear engagement dogs. My NC has a crunchy first gear from neutral, I'm going in for my 600 mile service soon and was going to ask the tech what he thought was up because I know hes got more gear case experience than I.

I've never owned any motorcycle that wasn't CLUNK! from neutral to first, so that's always been a complete non-issue for me, personally.

My F800ST was exactly the same neutral to first, as they all have been, but additionally it was..."Agricultural" to put it kindly, in all the other gears, up or down.

The NC700X of mine is decidedly notchy from 1st to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd, and 3rd to 4th, up or down. Much more than I've had with my other bikes so far. I trust it will smooth out over time.

 

[michaelks]

Well, i took it out for a ride yesterday after adding a 200 ml bottle of Militec to the oil and it's way better, no surprise there since i've been using it for years and it always improves things. I love this bike.

 

[670cc]

Well, i took it out for a ride yesterday after adding a 200 ml bottle of Militec to the oil and it's way better, no surprise there since i've been using it for years and it always improves things. I love this bike.

In what way is it way better? Can you elaborate? Does the transmission behave differently now?

Greg

 

[Beemerphile]

I am a big fan of Militec-1 for firearms, but I would not use any product in the crankcase that claims to reduce friction. This is because of the JASO MA rating of the oil for wet clutch use. I am sure there are many who have done it without incident, just as there are many who have used Energy Conserving II oils without incident. But it remains "not recommended". Also, it seems that 200ml is about twice the amount recommended by Militec for common gearbox applications.

I would tread carefully here.

 

[happy]

I am a big fan of Militec-1 for firearms, but I would not use any product in the crankcase that claims to reduce friction. This is because of the JASO MA rating of the oil for wet clutch use. I am sure there are many who have done it without incident, just as there are many who have used Energy Conserving II oils without incident. But it remains "not recommended". Also, it seems that 200ml is about twice the amount recommended by Militec for common gearbox applications.

I would tread carefully here.

Is this along the storyline of prematured clutch slippage?

 

[michaelks]

What i can tell you is that i've been using Militec for some time now, on three bikes not counting the NC, one of which i've had for over three years, and i've never noticed anything related to clutch problems, which is what most people worry about. Everything runs noticeably smoother and better, i recommend it without any doubt. Lee, as for the recommended amount, for engines they say use 60 ml per liter of oil, or more for high rpm uses. Of course our oil being also a crankcase oil, that will indeed be twice as much there, but no harm done.

What people sometimes misunderstand is that Militec is not an oil additive, it doesn't change or affect the oil properties, what it does is adsorb (becomes bonded to) metallic surfaces, greatly reducing friction and wear. My Honda XR250 never needs more that a light touch on the starter to spring to life, even after two weeks inactive in cold weather, and runs like a clock, since new in 2009. Very good power, no oil consumption, no cam chain noise, nothing.

As for the NC, i didn't at first add Militec to the oil because of the frequent oil changes i do on new bikes, namely at 100, 200 500 and 1000 km. So since it's a bit expensive, i only added it after the 200 km oil change, and before that the crankcase was really noisy and unpleasant, after adding Militec it is much better, as also is the engine, everything runs smoother. I'm much happier now.

But, of course the usual disclaimer applies, do at your own risk.

 

[happy]

I've used something like you described before, bonded to the metals and making it smoother.
I did it with my 17year old BMW car, and it was noticeably quieter and smoother, etc.
However I would not like to do it to my new NCX, no matter how good the promise of improvement is.
If needed, I would change oil more often and that is more affordable than risk a slippage somewhere.

That's me, scarity cat!

 

[Beemerphile]

Is this along the storyline of prematured clutch slippage?

In my opinion, yes. This is the risk it presents. It is a fine line between a potential small improvement and the edge of a cliff. The JASO MA spec is even broken into two sub-specifications called MA1 and MA2 because some machines are so particular.

 

[michaelks]

What they say is that since there is no metal to metal contact in the clutch, there is no risk of slippage. I used Militec on a Yam XT600 and a XT660 besides the XR250, for the better part of two years on the first and under a year on the second, and there were no clutch problems at all. Anyway, in the worst case, changing disks is a relatively simple operation. And lastly, i think we could all live with a little less clutch drag. I'm glad i don't hear that clack and clunk anymore, just a click now.

 

[Beemerphile]

What they say is that since there is no metal to metal contact in the clutch, there is no risk of slippage.

That doesn't make sense to me, but each makes his own choice. I hope it continues to work well for you.

 

[Dominican]

My NC (as of about 510 accumulated total kilometres so far) is one of the most notchy and "wow, this thing's shifting is pretty crunchy!" motorcycles I can remember owning. (this is my 21st bike in 40 years)

It's mostly the first to second, second to third change, up or down.

Still, it doesn't particularly alarm me, or make me dislike the bike, my BMW had a smoother gearbox as far as shifting went "notchy"-wise, but overall, the shift feeling was hated by me. It was forever going into false neutrals in any gear, and it never really felt positive or trustworthy that it wasn't going to pop right back out of the gear I just selected.

It did have a viscious crunch in the first-neutral selection.

My CBR125R has a beautiful, smooth as silk shifting box, except for 5th-6th gear when new, where it really liked to produce an incredibly bizarre and scary lurching/surging feel, accompanied by a hideously unhealthy noise and then pop back out of 6th and into 5th.

This was noted by many fellow CBR owners, and some were terrified and or bothered enough to sell their bikes. It was eye widening to me, but I didn't get put off about it, and tried to either make it explode during warranty or see if it went away or diminished over time.

It pretty much went away eventually, and I noticed a huge betterment in overall feel when I switched to Motul 300V synthetic (10W-40) If I am really lazy and sloppy I can provoke it to pop back into 5th from 6th, but it's extremely rare, and I have to work at it to make it happen. It's been over 5 years and 30K with no hint of nastiness or trouble now.

Many owners have tens of thousands of K's more than me, and I've never heard of one single gearbox failure reported, ever. I doubt there are many more abused motorcycles in the world, than the CBR125R lol. And this is Honda's "bargain basement" bike, that has gotta be one of the cheapest cost MC's available anywhere.

So with the NCX, I think it's more psychologically worrisome than actually a real, tangible concern, but I guess only time will tell. Add the strange 3,000 rpm 6th gear pulse/noise thing that some have, (I do) and I'm a little more curious, but I can live with it as long as it doesn't turn out to be a physical part defect after all.

Well, I am having somewhat of an issue with my bike, and it has to do with the 4th to 5th, and then the 6th gear. Sometimes, when shifting from 4th to 5th, it clicks like it got 5th, but when I let go of the clutch, all I hear is some crunching that gets faster as I pull on the throttle. I always quickly pull the clutch and click 5th harder, and that does the trick, but still it's discomforting. It has done that less than 10 times I would say in the last 8k miles.

The other issue I had was when I was maxing out the bike for a long stretch of empty road. I was hitting 110, then let it go down to 85 sometimes, then back up to 100, then back down. I did all this for about 10 minutes. At the end of it, on one last pull to 100, it popped out of 6th and into a weird neutral zone between 6th and 5th! it made the same crunchy noise I mentioned before, and I thought for sure the bike was toast. I quickly pulled the clutch, put it in sixth gear, and accelerated again. No problems. I haven't had that issue since then, but it is worrisome. Do you guys think this would be a warranty thing?

 

[Old Can Ride]

Try adjusting your shift lever either up or down one grove. This could conform to you a little better.

 

[netizen]

Well, I am having somewhat of an issue with my bike, and it has to do with the 4th to 5th, and then the 6th gear. Sometimes, when shifting from 4th to 5th, it clicks like it got 5th, but when I let go of the clutch, all I hear is some crunching that gets faster as I pull on the throttle. I always quickly pull the clutch and click 5th harder, and that does the trick, but still it's discomforting. It has done that less than 10 times I would say in the last 8k miles.

The other issue I had was when I was maxing out the bike for a long stretch of empty road. I was hitting 110, then let it go down to 85 sometimes, then back up to 100, then back down. I did all this for about 10 minutes. At the end of it, on one last pull to 100, it popped out of 6th and into a weird neutral zone between 6th and 5th! it made the same crunchy noise I mentioned before, and I thought for sure the bike was toast. I quickly pulled the clutch, put it in sixth gear, and accelerated again. No problems. I haven't had that issue since then, but it is worrisome. Do you guys think this would be a warranty thing?

Wow... I don't really know what to say... this bike's top end is around 110 I've heard... never been over 85 myself. Riding this bike at that speed is definitely not where it was designed to perform, so that is probably part of the problem. It makes me wince to think of an NCX being ridden that hard for long periods of time. It'd be like taking a regular horse to a thoroughbred race track and trying to get it to run with the race horses bred for racing. It'd probably start having issues real soon.

You need to add a sport bike to your collection for riding like this.. it'll love it and jump at the chance to show you what it can do. I have a VFR 750 that does just that for me.
I'm afraid if you keep riding the NCX like that your going to have real issues... it's just not designed to do triple digits like a sport bike. Honda builds great engines, but this one is designed for fuel economy and in my opinion is a heck of a good distance bike. Makes a great commuter too, and is great for new riders as it is so forgiving in the gears.

Not sure warranty would cover riding at those speeds anyway... Maybe OCR can chime in there as he was a dealer for many years.

I don't mean to offend.... I've done my share of riding like that in my younger days. I just think this is the wrong type of bike for that kind of riding...especially for maxing out the top end on.

 

[Beemerphile]

Try adjusting your shift lever either up or down one grove. This could conform to you a little better.

You can get pretty good range of adjustment out of the threaded rod on the lever before resorting to repositioning the notch. I think it sounds like a warranty issue. Mine has been very smooth (also coming from BMW's) and I have never hit a false neutral or had the transmission come out of gear. But then, I don't treat mine like yo do either - especially at that low mileage. But, everyone has their own break-in regiment, so carry on.

 

[Old Can Ride]

I agree with netizen on this one. If your bike is loaded down on a cross county camping trip, windshield shield, bags, truck, and all the rest of the stuff, and you are fat like me, all I can get from the top end is 95 mph. This I know for sure! The bike is very stable at these speeds loaded down, and I was surprised how stable. Although this bike may look somewhat like a sports bike, this is an adventure bike, not a sports bike. It's intent as stated by the company is Adventure riding with good gas mileage.

From a warranty stand point, your coverage is for 1 year with unlimited mileage. Abuse in not covered under warranty. Unless the dealership can show abuse, it is covered. Most dealerships would rather cover a warranty claim, because they get paid for the work, and the customer is a happy camper. However, there are some things the companies have seen over and over, and the companies have already won so many cases in the courtroom that they will never cover. Examples not covered are carb rebuilds and front steering yoke bearings to fix hands off bar shakes.