dunedain

I got just under 4000 miles on mine and they are all that was mentioned above excpet I did not personally find the feedback that good. They dont just cut away in that hard downhill off camber turn but I've always considered Dunlops one of the best feedback tires made. the ST does not talk to me that much but is compliant. Mine wont make 5000 miles (prolly 4500 miles max). I do ride hard on crappy roads and half of this was two up riding FWIW. The best you know is the best you've ridden. One @sshat in my town bags every tire out there but has never rode anything but Michi's. Ya gots ta try'em.

Nope I think you'll be fine. If you bottom it from time to time you'll know your at it's limit. I'd take it light if he's never ridin as he's probably not a great pillion just yet and thats not like hauling our little sportbike babes on back!

Change once a year if you ride a lot or just want to keep the suspension in good condition. Two-year intervals will also work, but then you will use a fork that has contaminations affecting the function of fork valves. There will always be someone saying I havn't needed to change in e.g 5 years. Those guys should try a bike with a new maintained fork...It is like changing the brake disks and pads on a car, you dont relalize how bad it has been until you put in new parts. I'll plus one all dat! I'm an every two years guy. When that 5 year guy does look at his fork oil as he dumps it out he'll see this really pretty metalic color to it. Anyone who knows oil knows metalic in it is not good. Considering your bushings are teflon coated I consider it like sandpaper on the bushing teflon coating. One of the only 3 forces to act on our suspension is friction and the goal here would be to make friction as close to zero as possible for optimal performance. Thats also why you should disassemble the rear linkage and clean and lube it the same time you do your forks. Make that suspension fwork for yas!!! Good sttuff man!

I vote no! Interesting vid for sure. Other than ruining the pipes for future sale (of course mine are still on the shelf) they do sound pretty interesting. What itch is it that you have? Make it louder? Faster? Throttle Response? There are better ways but they cost. I bet you get worse performance although not all that noticable but it will sound different. Once you drill it, it's useless in my book. Get a Two Bro's or Yosh, Akra......etc. and yeah you'll spend some money but you'll turely gain HP, throttle response and HP. 2cent

I thought cross cutting was a drag racing thingy but I remember hearing about it somewhere on here I think. Way back when. So his bike is coming out of 2nd gear into neutral?

NO MORE ALUMINUM SPROCKETS FOR YOU!!! Remember to save the planet and reduce, reuse, and recycle every chance you get. I did not want to go wait in line w/the can collectors so I.........made mine into a clock!

RT recommends 3.5-5w (US1) but I use 2.5w (US0) and damped one shim harder. I've convinced myself that it gives better feedback that way. Not saying I'm right I just say I'm convinced myself I feel it better.

I'm race tech certified and know the secret behind the infamous CODE you get to plug in and its all BS. PM me with your numbers and I'll set you a shim stack that will blow any normal RT shim stack away. In fact we'll build in some high, med, and low speed damping into the stack that will take that mere smere XX suspension to almost superbike performance. I dont charge a fookin thing. I just expect respect and friendship. I've built about 10 for the XX and did 4 of those on my own to get it just right. I do my stacks like a guy from attack Kawasaki (attack Suzuki at the time) as he and I went through the school together and shared some info over the years. No fear as we got ya covered. -M

so in answer to the question....leave the 6mm in and install the Ohlins and dial it in for a while.

by 30 amp fuse under relay do you the one you have to pull the tail section off to get to?

Good stuff! I use Engine Ice but I too dont worry bout it. I've never bolied out on the blackbird with temp guage pegged and fan batheing me in the hot air blast and 105 degrees ambient.....no tellin how hot the melting asphalt was. I use engine ice in dirt bikes that used to boil over duringlong enduros but the EI helped greatly.

Zaino Bros or Zymol

I use the lightest I can find and do all my damping with the valves. I use like a 2.5-5wt my oil level is 120mm, spring out and slider tube completely down in fork tube. You have to exercise the damping rod a couple of good strokes to get all the air out of it. I should qualify I'm race-teched so stock may be a little different. I would be not that much.

Plus one on that man. Magnaflux would be ignorant unless you think there is a crack and in that case unless you have a magnaflux machine, dye penetrant would be the best cost effective way to look for a leak. I do, every 4-5 years pop the pistons our using comressed air adn give it all a loook. It's just maint practice. Heck ya fork oil all the damn time, seals when needed. Steering head as needed as well. Some folks treat a motorcycle as an entire system with each component needing service and maint. others barely keep proper air pressure in the tires. It's just a matter of what your levle of commitment to the bike is. A turbo and extended swing arm would be cool too! I'd keep the stock one though. I've done the buffing/sanding of the disks to help bed in new pads and I've not touched them too and I liked it better not touching the rotors....just insert disks and ride it. Personal preference.

You need to look at both the rear and the front or your total suspension package as a whole. In other words you need to check sag for both......it should be about 25mm with you on the bike. I assume since adjustability seems out on the fronts thats why you were not going to measure but you can adjust your preload fairly easy. Just cut a different length spacer and replace the one you have longer or shorter depending on your pre-load needs. My2cents.

Dayum! Farkle City. If I did not crash it winding the turbo up I'd crash it looking at all the gauges. A fookin real cockpit man! Like the real Black Bird! Back on topic I think you've already ID'ed the one weakness of the bird but when you look at the suspension this winter you should make it ride right. Someone mentioend tires and someone else steering head bearings and both of those are valid. I concur that the XX should not need a damper.

WOW. I have never done this with the caliper on. I figured sinve the the pads are toast anyway I just slide a big wrench or screwdriver in between and pry them back in once the caliper is off to leave the the rotor out of the equation entirely. I generally run a pipe cleaner around each piston prior to remove dirt and junk so I dont push that back into the calipercausing undue wear on the seals cause I hate brake fluid leaks more than any other fluid......excpet my blood leaking out.....heheheh

That's interesting and I know this is hugely important on high performance 2-smoke GP style bikes (or 2-S dirt bikes) but I did not think it would effect 4 strokes that much (unless heavly machines for high perf). Normally when severe heat occurs the humidity, while still pretty high runs inversely proportional to heat (i.e. @78* youre @~83%, @99* youre @~44%....roughly but the Dew Point stays about the same 72*ish ) so I would agree there may be another source for the drop but you make an excellent point. This is what the PGA boys are playing in here in Tulsa. If you're a golf fan we'll see who's fit on the tour this week! Temp vs Humidity Wednesday Aug 8th graph Tulsa. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick....amp;AheadHour=0 Temp vs Humidity Wednesday Aug 8th graph Chicago. Dew point at 68ish. http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?w...56&site=lot

Those are my tires after one track day! The left a Diablo The right is burned beyond recognition. Actually these are what Rossi rides in the rain with during MotoGP races

Clean, clean, clean...make it all clean! I use contact cleaner and wash down the parts. Beware the nasty little sharp edge on the bushing slot on the fork slider. They can make your seals leak. A little plastic wrap will protect. Fill the cupped part of the seal w/bearing grease. You'll need to exercise the the damping rod a few times to get ALL THE OIL OUT. Just dont let Race-tech know your doing this or they'll try to sell you a flux capacitor for your valves which you could do without but it sure would spark talk in the paddock or down at the poser place.

judging by the other responses to the initial post I think I'm not reading it right but...... I will not buy a tire that's more than 70 weeks old (almost a yeah ans a half) mostly I bitch if they are not under 4 months old especially if they are going on race bikes. I thought it would be no bigg deal on dirt tires so I bought some 3 year old knobbies and ran an enduro and at the end of it I had no knobbies left on them. You could kick them off with a boot!

I've liked the zero gravity until I took a rock and bird in it. They shattered like sugar glass. I heard of a brand "Puig(?sp) that some locals rave on. May try one if my current double bubble breaks

Put an R1 rectifier on it and see what happens. I too have had the Stator, Battery, and RR within spec.....r just at the edge and it was still the RR. Ended up havin to buy two stators and an RR. You might be able to do some more investigation and find the trouble. Good Luck!

I have a 98 as well and while I dont have the wild swings (I agree w/the connections idea btw) mine does read full hen goes from full to empty in about 55 miles. I just figure the sending unit it getting slow or the float is messed up somehow.

I dyno tuned my carbed 98, full two bros, k&n, & dynojet stage 1 (140 outers, 142 inners, 4th clip up) and got: 146.76 hp 83.45 mt plus I (or rather my dyno guy) cleaned up that little extra rich spot on the low rpm range and I can now go almost 40 more miles per tank. that was the shocking thing to me. except I have hyosung needles in the carbs now too. we ran it 7 ways to sunday and they just gave us the best numbers.