Not necessarily. Every engine has a torque vs rpm curve. If you load the engine down heavier at a specific speed than what it is designed for you make it work harder, cutting down its mpg. I'm sure the Rotax is designed for most efficient torque in the 4000 to 5000 RPM range, or thereabouts, hence the gears are set to provided the optimum torque vs vehicle speed for each gear. You can't just tack on an extra gear to lower the engine speed as you may drop it below its optimum torque range. Keep in mind the required torque to overcome road and wind resistance and maintain speed increases as vehicle speed increases.
:agree: There is
definitely a designed 'sweet spot' or more correctly, a 'sweet
rev range' in the torque vs revs curve! Use your gears to stay in that rev range at your chosen road speed & you'll get the best from your motor, but drop out of it & it'll cost you! And that works/applies both ways too!! Let your revs get too low, & it won't be as efficient/economical as it could be; similarly, rev it too high, & once again, it won't be as efficient/economical as it could be! :lecturef_smilie:
I reckon this ideal band is between about 3,500 rpm & a bit over 4,500 rpm (
maybe as high as 5,000 rpm?!?) for the 1330's, & IIRC, it was between about 4,000 & 5,500 for the stock 2010 - 2016 V-Twins, albeit a little different for the earlier versions. I don't recall the V-Twin numbers exactly, cos it's a fair bit different on my '
ECU Upgraded' 2013 V-Twin, but that's by choice & design, & courtesy of a very good tuner!

hyea:
Speaking of that very good tuner, (Jase @ ECU Xtreme/Rotax Racing) the last time I discussed this '
swap the cogs' thing with him (which admittedly was some time back now

pps: ) IIRC he explained that it was fairly easy to do & had been done fairly often on the early V-twins; it was getting somewhat difficult on the newer V-twins but had been done a few times; and was so difficult due to all the 'hidden references' in the coding to things like Country Code & hard coded Model/Sprocket relationships that it had become an extremely laborious & time consuming thing to do & get right that it just wasn't worth it on the 1330's - in fact, I believe he said something along the lines of "
there's 'expletive deleted' HUNDREDS of the 'expletive deleted' 'expletive deleted' bloody records in there that hafta be tracked down & changed individually or it'll eventually throw codes & dump the machine into limp mode or just shut it down!" :yikes: And I reckon he also suggested that when it comes to the 1330 motors, he could improve things more than enough for most simply by upgrading the ECU to unleash
some of its hidden potential without even going anywhere near its limits.... :thumbup:
So that might be a more do-able & cost effective path for those of you looking for better cruising (or other performance changes/improvements) to go down instead of playing around with the drive cogs?! :dontknow: But if Jase isn't prepared to do anything more re swapping the drive cogs, then I seriously doubt that it's gonna be easy for anyone else to do successfully....
Just Sayin' :thumbup: