6 gear gearbox upgrade - Status: kinda revived

[sam2019]

4. July 2021, 15:47

Hi everybody!
we are currently playing with a alpha set of gears for a 6 gear gearbox upgrade for the Hima.
To know if this will ever fly (or is just a fancy idea of ours) I would like you guys to answer this poll. Only honest answers from the heart please 😁
of course we would provide an instructional video for the DIY types.

 

[sam2019]

Quote from Kiwi59 on 11. July 2021, 8:42
Hi Sam, Sounds interesting. Would you also be able to provide a new sender and light for the dash the show the 6th gear? Cheers Brian.

depends, the sensor is just a switch, it would just switch one up. maybe the display goes to 9 - then its not a challenge at all. but in the worst case it won't work and you have to ride like the riders of old, with your ears telling you the gear you are in. should not be too hard. this electronic gimmick stuff makes us all lazy.

 

[sam2019]

I should mention that this 6-gear setup is explicitly calibrated to support the 477, not the OEM.


If you change sprockets to 16 (from 15) you loose power over the entire spectrum. that takes away a lot of fun as I personally experienced - for the few moments where I really want to have a higher top end speed.

This may be different in the west but in India even on highways 100 kmh is pretty much the end of the safe zone. A 6 gear would allow full use of "low" speed super-torque of the 477 (meaning 0 - 100kmh) and then the 6th kicks in as overdrive.
also subjectively there is a desire to switch gears at about 80 kmh, just from the feeling the engine gives at that point.
we have now decided to rest the development for a month to see how the interest develops.
if nothing changes we will probably shelve it.

 

[sam2019]

24. July 2021, 3:23

Yesterday the guy who is the prime developer for this, my tech guy and myself had a little discussion about the future of this plan and came to the following conclusions:

• about 100 people have seen this all of whom are Hima owners and only 8 found it interesting enough to vote
• from those votes only 2 expressed an interest that was better than "meh"
• although the issue was introduced on the advertising forum it did not gain ANY tracktion there
• although there must have been individuals from various fb groups, the owners forum and the German forum who read this neither created even a single message mentioning it - in other words it was a none issue with them
• there have come up problems with the design, nothing insurmountable but making things more difficult, thereby expensive and the dev process drawn-out
• The workload to implement it on a bike is a lot more than just changing the cylinder and way more than changing a cam. considering how many people flocked to the cam vs. the 477 although from a technical point of view the 477 is the more solid solution and not that much more expensive it follows that time and complexity of the work plays a BIG role in decisions the buyers make which does make the 6 gear unattractive for the buyer.
• Certain parts will have to be mass produced which means we have to order quite a lot to make them affordable - in a market that is small and in the light of the aforementioned arguments this seems a financial risk not worth taking for a small company like HT.
• The last and possibly only option is a crowdfunding campaign - however the number of people interested may be too small. But this is something we could do without risking the bank and if we where wrong and in fact enough people like a 6 gear Hima then this would show (or not - but no loss in that case).

 

[sam2019]

14. June 2022, 13:18

Strictly speaking we are not doing anything but we have heard from one of our suppliers that someone is working on the 6 gear set for Hima.
If news come up i will report here.

It seems this is a project at best in the early design stages. The relevant person said he had done "the drawings" but it could take many month until the prototype is ready.

 

[sam2019]

UPDATE:
In the original thread there where many more opinions and the discussion was quite positive but given the fact that there has been no development from said supplier since over 6 month I guess we can also book this under "didn't pan out".