Think the big issue with fitting a traditional damper is you have to drill into the frame to mount it?

Personally I'd say that if anyone's thinking of this but still has the stock rear shock on, the solution's to sort out the rear... For the price of a damper you could try out pretty much all of the busa/GSXR/636 shock options and still have change left over, after all. That could actually fix your instability problems, while all a damper will do is cover them up.

Case in point, with my SV's suspension half sorted- ohlins springs in the front but the standard oil, no preload adjustment, and the standard rear shock- I started getting terrifying bar shake on the really bumpy road by my work (which i use as a general test road) at around 60 over the bumps, and also got a horrible amount of vagueness and big leaps of the rear end.

The only things I changed next was the shock and the ride height. I put the rear up by about 10mm and the front down by 8, which should encourage slappers, but with the Ohlins shock that road's doable at 80 with the rear under control and only mild shake. If I put it back to the standard geometry I could probably lose the shakes, but I'd lose cornering agility.

Now, I'm not saying you need a full-on aftermarket shock, but there's a lot of cheaper options out there.

The usual place for the piston type dampers as produced by Ohlins, WP, etc. is across the front of the tank. The brackets fit around the top yoke nut and the tank mounts.

Other common places to fit them are along the side of the frame or under the bottom yoke. Both require yokes/frames with the necessary brackets which the SV doesn't have.

Well, the easy answer is no.

The more complicated answer is that there is a variety of brackets for motocross bikes that can be adapted to fit but it requires replacing the bar mounts. Unfortunately that pushes the price up quite a lot, from a list price of around 300 quid to over 450 quid.

Even being generous with the discounts it's much cheaper to use clip ons instead. Having said that we are looking at the cost of getting a new top yoke made but again it isn't going to be cheap.

There is also talk of the same company producing a set up that fits inside the bars to dampen the vibrations from the engine. I don't know if they do them for the SV yet but I'm sure they are fairly generic. Will let you know once I've tried one on my race bike.

Well with the baby on the way and the judder you get from a side car a damper would help alot... Lets just see what Jax has to say about that idea.. :wink:

Used to have one sold it, now want another one. I have Ohlins front and rear suspension set really hard, I also have a 46 rear sprocket on the rear. When i really push it on pullaway I have to physical lean forward to keep the front down, I have had a couple of scarey moments on rough roads when a damper would give me a bit of safety zone, which would quieten down the front. So yes get one if you push yourself and the bike, if you don't don't worry about it.
sexysi

How does a steering damper keep the front down Si?

It doesn't but when you blast away from a set of lights on a bumpy road and the front lifts about 2-3" inches the bars start to get twitchy, as the front lands, most interesting. With the damper on, who cares, your wheel could land in the Grand Canyon and it wouldn't move an inch.
What you got to bear in mind is that, this is a full on pull away, that if I lent back a little the bike, then the bike would go vertical.
sexysi

I just bring it back down less hard... I reckon it's worse when the wheel just goes light but doesn't quite lift, a bump in the wrong place and you just about lose your wrists... Much safer to just pull a proper one or not do it at all I think :)

On the other hand, last time i was up at Knockhill (yes, the one where I fell off at 60) I found the front end slid a couple of times in the hairpin and the only reason I kept it up was because I could twitch the front quickly to save it...

I don't want to seem like I'm totally against the idea, I'll see how I feel myself after the engine work's done, but a suspension rebuild's a far more useful use of money. I know you have the Ohlins setup like me, so for you it makes sense, but for anyone on stock gear it's money in the wrong place IMHO.

Fair enough. I agree with ya mate, money better spent on Ohlins etc.
sexysi

Identical one on eBay, ending soon: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...tem=7933768436