GSXR 600 K1 Handling - Anyone help ?

I am having a few handling issues at the moment and was hoping some of you guys could help ?

I suspect my rear shock is pretty knackered and is causing a few handling issues - but I just wanted to see if people agree that this is the cause as I have a K5 GSXR 600 rear shock ready and waiting to replace if needed

So - I recently had new fork seals and oil as one fork was badly leaking oil, this sorted out the front end which feels very nice now. However - I am still having handling problems, here are the issues I'm having:

- It is difficult to get the bike to change direction very quickly at all, it feels very slow steering.

- When cornering at even moderate pace the back end of the bike 'wallows' really badly, it wiggles from side to side and bounces up and down like a pogo stick over bumps pushing me wide in corners, scary!

- When leaning over around, say, a roundabout, I can get a decent amount of lean on but I feel like the front end is extremely vague and it feels like I have no weight over the front at all and I feel as if I am sitting right 'in' the bike.

- Also - I am not a tall guy, I'm around 5' 6'' and 70kg, but yet I can pretty much get both feet flat on the ground when sat on my gixxer, which seems strange as I couldnt even do this on my old SV! Feels as if the bike is definitely lower than it should really be, and if I take off at traffic lights rapidly it feels like the rear just squats down a lot!

My bike has only done just over 5000 miles from new, as the previous owner left it sitting in his garage for 6 years! So it is strange that the rear shock could be so tired after doing very little, but then the forks and fork oil were totally worn out, so maybe it is the case?

All helpful advice VERY gratefully received! Thanks in advance

[fizzwheel]

What settings have you got the suspension on ? i.e are the preload and everything set as per the factory default ?

If not I'd wager the previous owner has fiddled with them and made your bike worse to ride instead of better.

If it were me I'd be returning it all to stock and then seeing what it feels like.

I cant see how a shock would go off after 5K. But I'm no expert on these things.

Does sound a bit low. I'm 6ft ish and I cant get my feet flat down on my K5-750..

What Fizz said

Lack of rear damping? (either by wear or by mis-adjusted settings)?

Haha great minds think alike!

I actually returned it to factory settings today .

Did improve the handling a lot - previous owner had it on full attack settings, so was very stiff and didnt absorb bumps at all, not nice . Bike is much better at absorbing bumps now and feels a lot nicer to ride. Still didnt fix the weird handling though dammit!

Hmm that is crazy that you are 6ft and cant flatfoot your bike yet little me can almost flatfoot mine. I have always thought a GSXR should be **** up head down, but mine dont feel anything near that and I really think it should! Dammit handling issues are so frustrating, everything else about my bike is utterly amazing, the engine sounds and feels like a jet-engine and the brakes are mad, I just cant go round corners very well .

[fizzwheel]

Was the previous owner a shortie ? I dont know if its possible on the GSXR to fit longer dogbones to reduce the rear ride height, but that might give the feeling you've got.

It'd also upset the steering geometry which might account for the weirdo feeling your getting from the front end as well. Again I'm not expert so dont take what I'm saying for gospel truth.

One last thing and I'm sure you've checked it, but what have you got your tyre pressures set to and are you using a guage that you trust rather than one on a garage forecourt ?

Hmmm dunno about the previous owner as I bought it from a dealers - I'll have a look at the dogbones, see if they look 'stock' or not, not too sure if that will be easy to deduce or not though as they are probably covered in crud!

Tyre pressures checked already yeah - 36 front, 40 rear, if only it was that simple eh .

I do have almost brand new K5 rear shock to try out though if the current shock is dead - apparently its almost identical just a few milimetres longer and other people have done it with very good results, so could hopefully be the cure .

The mechanic at the dealers has also offered to take the bike off my hands for a weekend and give it a good test ride down some country roads out of london if all else fails and see if he can get to the bottom of it, which is nice of him - he did look quite eager for me to do so actually, think he liked the idea of thrashing my bike for a weekend .

[Stu]

Would a dealer not be able to diagnose? for free?
especially the one you bought it from

Could be one of two things...wrong preload or too little rear compression damping. I'm favouring the rear compression damping on what you're saying.

If there's too much squat at the rear under accelleration then the bike will want to steer wide coming out of corners. The bike is effectively running nose up so if you hit a bump for example then the chassis is upset and steering/control become wallowy.

I'm 6ft1 and the stock settings on my cbr don't suit me at all.

BUT if your preload isn't setup properly then you're ****ing in the wind. You MUST get your preload set up for your weight before doing anything else. Once this is done then you can make micro adjustments to the damping.

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

Was the previous owner a shortie ? I dont know if its possible on the GSXR to fit longer dogbones to reduce the rear ride height, but that might give the feeling you've got.

It'd also upset the steering geometry which might account for the weirdo feeling your getting from the front end as well. Again I'm not expert so dont take what I'm saying for gospel truth.

if it was dropped at the back & not at the front it could account for the running wide behaviour & general wallowyness

If the thing is still bouncy at the back it certainly looks like the damping is shot to me. After 5K that shock should be OK. If its been standing for a long time maybe something is stuck inside stopping the damping working correctly.