Steering Damper positioning

[TSM]

Originally Posted by curium

I'm surprised people are fitting dampers to the 650s.

Did 31000 miles on mine with lots of fast riding including a trip to spain and it's always behaved immaculately.

Are you sure there isn't an underlying problem which a damper would just mask?

but some people have done GSXR front end conversions. The GSXR forks are shorter than the original forks by a couple of cm, this makes the bike steer fast and without a little compensation of a 120/70 the front will still be very low. On a normal SV frontend , i did not have issues that would want a damper.

[northwind]

Mine is pretty tall at the rear... A revalved and sprung Ohlins shock at full length, plus a set of what I think are JHS raising dogbones. Plus, the GSXR front is shorter as's been said. However, I've offset the drop with a 120/70 tyre, so it's now no lower than it was with my dropped SV front end. And just for laughs, it's got an extra 10bhp to play with.

It's pretty stable... It'll shake on full power in first and second, but not badly or uncontrollably- I'm sure I can adjust that out from the shock if I put the effort in, but I just ride around it for now. I tend not to ride like that on the road anyway, and on track it's not an issue. But with that geometry, I'm sure it'd be an absolute ******* with less good suspension.

Basically, I consider steering dampers on most SVs to be a patch, not a fix. Most of the time, if the head's shaking you've either done something stupid, or you have a suspension issue, and it's better to go to source and fix the problem than to slap on a plaster to cover it up. Having said that, I've often considered getting a 916-style damper and having it set really low, partly as insurance and partly because they look cool

I was thinking of putting it on my track bike, not my road bike.

I am going to set my track SV up aggressively, I already have put in a longer ZX636 shock, and the shorter dogbones, I will drop the forks through the yokes as much as I can get away with too. Oh and I will be running a 70 profile front.

This, plus intended use might make it a bit more of an animal??? Who knows … but I have this damper knocking about, so might as well use it?!?!? I can always take it off again.

I’ll measure the stroke later. I like the idea of having it where the stock GSXR one is, but is there a bolt hole on the normal SV forks? I also like the idea of the fork clamp bolts to the fairing stay mount.

leave the forks flush with the yokes and get the **** as high as possible ground clearence is far more important and use the damper to hold the garage door open when you load the van. more useful than fitting it to the bike. you've got to be along way out with setup on a carby before you should even think about one.
im running gsxr front with rear on max and shorter links with 20+hp more and no damper without issues

[northwind]

Yep, but what have you got in the back, Rob? I'm presuming a quality aftermarket item rather than a shoddy kayaba number off another bike

Originally Posted by Robw#70

leave the forks flush with the yokes and get the @rse as high as possible ground clearence is far more important and use the damper to hold the garage door open when you load the van. more useful than fitting it to the bike. you've got to be along way out with setup on a carby before you should even think about one.
im running gsxr front with rear on max and shorter links with 20+hp more and no damper without issues

Perhaps I’ll leave it for now … I’ve just had that damper sitting around for years and finally thought I had found an application!!!