After 8 track days this year with Speed Research, and I have learned a ton. Primary amongst those lessons is, “Don’t open the throttle all the way when you are still fully leaned over.” My scratched fairing, broken shift lever, and scuffed leathers will remind me of that learning experience for some time.

Another key track lesson that I was surprised to learn is, “When riding in the paddock, you may get T-boned by a passing rider.” Yup, some jackalope took the SV and me down in the paddock. I was probably only cruising at about four miles an hour, but despite that slow pace, the collision broke my carbon muffler, the slip-on flange by which it connects to the mid pipe, and my shifter. Sweet.

With bike thusly out of commission, I had some time to wander around and watch riders. I even remembered my little point-and-shoot camera, and I pointed and shot some grainy, tiny videos of Kevict riding around in the A group. Check it!

(Save locally, please.)

Turns, 6, 7, and 8 (tiny Kevict, but check the acceleration!)
The back side of 9 into 10 (again, check that speed!)
Turns, 11, 12, and 13
The back straight

After swapping the stock fork from my 2006 SV1000s for a 2005 GSX-R 600 unit, I took the bike to the track and had it professionally set up by a track-side suspension expert. The spring rate and oil weight (described in the swap article linked above) were spot-on, and the shorter overall length of the fork was not a problem at all on track.

The fork is noticeably stiffer over choppy bumps, but not by any means harsh. Cornering is completely free of any wallowing and therefore feel more stable, though the stock fork did an admirable job as well in my opinion. Turn in is not dramatically improved, though transitions do seem to require slightly less effort.

The major difference, and it is a night and day difference, is during braking. The fork feels like it has nearly no dive at all, and the bike now tracks straight and true even under extremely hard braking. I could brake significantly later and much harder into turns, and the bike felt totally composed and confidence inspiring. I was not expecting this much of an improvement, and I am very pleased.

Lever feel is incredible and positive as well, and I am not using a radial master, nor braided lines yet. I tried fitting the radial master from the GSXR, but with the LSL raised clip-ons, the brake lines would interfere with the clip-ons. The radila master simply did not fit and I was initially concerned that would mean reduced braking power, but the performance with the stock SV master has proven to be fantastic, and I feel no need to use a radial master at this point.

For a tracked bike, I feel the braking improvement alone is worth the expense and time of this swap. After two track days, I have managed to take 5 seoncds per lap off of my previous best times. However, I still feel the stock fork and brakes were more than up to the tasks of street riding, including very spirited canyon carving.

Overall, I was not sure if I would notice an improvement over the stock system, which I believed to be very good, and in most respects the improvements are not dramatic. However, if better extreme braking is what you are after, the GSXR 600 fork’s combination of more aggressive damping and stiffer overall structure serve up what you need in spades.

Plus, they look the business!

2005 GSX-R 600 fork and caliper swap onto 2006 SV1000s

Installing an upside down fork and radial calipers on a 2006 SV1000s is something many owners are interested in doing. Having just completed this swap myself, I can say with complete assurance that the actual work is quite simple, providing you start with the correct parts and tools.

I have read a lot of different processes for swapping a late-model GSX-R fork onto a SV1000, but most of those seem to contain misleading or inaccurate information. When I decided to do this swap for myself, I decided to write a clear (albeit a bit long) process, with a clear parts list, based on my recent ‘05 GSX-R 600 fork and caliper swap. I apologize for the length, but I hope it will serve others looking to do this same swap.

Materials:

Starting with a fork and brakes from a 2004-2005 GSXR 600 seemed to me to be the easiest route, because many SV parts could be re-used.

Here is the complete list of parts I used for the swap. If it isn’t listed, you don’t need to buy it. The reasoning behind each part is included where needed.

• 2005GSXR 600 fork
• 2005GSXR 600 radial calipers
• 2005GSXR 600 upper and lower triples
• Speed Research carbon fender fender
  A stock GSXR 600 fender would, of course, work as well but the SV fender won’t work with the new fork.
• Custom machined spacers to fit the GSXR calipers to the SV rotors
  The calipers were designed to work with 300mm rotors. The brakes on the SV 1000 are 310mm.

  Dimensions:
  Outer diameter: 24mm
  Inner diameter: 10mm
  Thickness: 5mm
  Cost: 60 dollars for 4 at local machine shop. I am sure I could have got these cheaper, but I wanted them done the next day, and 60 bucks is cheap compared to a new front wheel and rotors.

• LSL “offset match” 50mm clip-ons with a 1.5 inch rise, and LSL bar ends
  The stock clip-ons will not fit around the larger fork tubes, and stock GSXR clip-ons do not preserve the comfortable riding position of the SV, and leave very little room (read: not enough) between the stock fairing and the grips.
• Race Tech springs
  I weigh 175 lbs with no gear, and the SV weighs at least 40 pounds more than the GSXR 600. The added weight of the bike alone necessitates a stiffer spring to get the intended performance out of the fork. The stock GSXR 600 springs are around .85s). I factored the extra weight of my bike in to the Race Tech spring rate calculator (i.e., 175+40 = 215 lbs “rider weight”) to figure the correct rate. Plus, the stock spring rate on the SV is .98 anyhow, and it was sprung pretty well for me, just not damped well enough.
• Redline synthetic fork oil
  Lightweight/Medium cocktail mixed 65/35 to achieve about 6.5w
• A new left grip
  I bought a new one so I could cut the old one off rather than wrestling with it and fighting grip glue.
• Some small strips of rubber
  From a bicycle tire inner tube, for example (see process below).

Time:

• Budget one weekend day. I spent about 6 hours, including cleaning and bleeding the brakes, re-springing and oiling the fork, etc.

Difficulty (one bleeding knuckle to five bleeding knuckles):

• Two bleeding knuckles for just the swap, three bleeding knuckles if you re-spring the fork. This ain’t rocket science.

Process:

1. Re-spring and oil the GSXR fork.
   You will need a fork spring compression tool, such as this one sold by Traxxion Dynamics. The tool comes with excellent instructions. Follow them, and take your time. I added 6.5 weight oil to a height of 115mm. This is the hardest part of the job. When you are done, take a break and have a beverage.
2. Raise the bike with a front stand, and support.
   I used jack stands on cinder blocks to support the innermost part of the frame sliders.
3. Remove the fairing.
4. Remove the ignition assembly (held on with loctited 40mm security torx bolts).
   I bought a security torx bit for a ratchet at an auto parts store.
5. Remove old forks, clamps, and clip-ons.
6. Remove the controls from the old clip-ons, and tie/hang them aside with stiff wire or zip ties
7. Remove the brake lines from the SV calipers, and get brake fluid everywhere.
8. Clean up the brake fluid mess.
9. Remove, clean and grease the old bearings, then re-use them.
   The Stock GSXR 600 bearings can be used if you prefer, they are the same.
10. Install the GSXR fork, triples, and new clip-ons.
    I ran the tops of the fork caps flush with the top triple, for maximum length.
11. Install the ignition assembly into the new triple clamp.
    Note that it fits perfectly, and the steering lock works just fine.
12. Install the controls, grips, and end caps onto the clip-ons.
    The starter and turn signal assemblies have plastic locator pins which seat in a matching hold drilled into the clip-ons. Rather than jigging and drilling the clip-ons, I dremel-ed off the locator pins, and used a very thin strip of rubber between the assemblies and the bars to prevent them spinning when installed. Works fine.
    I bent and re-used the brake fluid reservoir bracket by mounting it to the LSL clip-on bolt.
13. Install the GXSR Fender onto the fork.
14. Install the SV wheel with SV axle.
15. Attach the brake lines to the new calipers.
16. Attach the calipers to the forks, with the spacer mentioned above.
17. Remove the bike form the supports using the front stand.
18. Bleed the brakes.
19. Replace the fairing.
20. Take a picture and have a beer.

That’s a lot of steps, and many are simplified, but aside from re-springing and oiling the fork, there is really nothing tricky about it.

Worked on the car with Dad, Kevict, Jonathan, Ramon and Pat-the-torquer.

Just a quick update for posterity:

Brakes:

• Replaced front and rear rotors with Zimmerman (non-drilled) items
• Rebuilt front and rear calipers, and removed all traces of once-red paint
• Replaced PBR Deluxe pads with PBR Ultimates
• Bled brakes and replaced fluid with ATE Typ 200
• Replaced rotor and caliper bolts
• Replaced front wheel bearings (check the pic – they take a lot of torque!)

General:

• Changed oil (Mobil1 0W-40) and filter (OEM)
• Replaced rear and side///M-blems (rear was absent, sides were faded)
• Replaced hood switch to fix the over-eager alarm
• Replaced rear trunk struts
• Replaced weird Kragen-style rear view mirror with OEM auto-dimming “M oval” mirror
• Lubed door hinges, handles, and hardware
• Checked for code faults (looked very good) and cleared codes

Tires:

• Shod the stock Roadstars in Kumho Ecsta SPTs – 235/45/17 and 255/40/17

I love this car. It now stops at least as well as it goes, which means I can make it go a lot better before I stop. And it goes better than I do, which is a lot of fun.

What?

After longing for an M Coupe for nearly ten years, one finally followed me home. I am so excited I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Even mundane activities, like filling up with gas, or checking the tire pressures, seem exciting with this car. I really am that big a dork.

So far, the car is fantastic. Pretty well stock, with Bilstein HDs and some urethane bushings in the rear.

The previous owner painted the stock calipers red (Come on now – that’s just not okay). Reverting to stock black is the first order of business. While I am in there, I am going to replace the semi-warpy Zimmerman drilled rotors with OEM Brembo units, upgrade from PBR Deluxe pads to PBR Ulitmates for a little better fade resistance, replace the stock brake lines with new braided items, and rebuild the calipers with new bushings and seals.

Tires are the next items that needs to be addressed. Since the plan is to keep this as a street-only car, I am debating about what tires to put on. Knowing me, the “street-only” will last until the first track day or autocross of the season, so I will likely go with some maximum performace summer tires – the Hankook RS2 is a strong front-runner. Super cheap and super sticky. I have heard the sidewalls are soft, but I am willing to throw a set on to see whether that is indeed the case, and if so, if it bothers me.

Also high on the needs list: an M badge for the rear. Who takes those off?

After removing the stock exhaust from my SV1000S and replacing it with a Yoshimura 3/4 system, I have to say, the stock system is a mess.

Have look at the pictures below and imagine you are a molecule of combustion gas trying to escape an engine through the labyrinth of flattened, bent, twisted and hideously ugly pipes that lead to the totally restrictive honeycomb-filled mufflers.

You would be a pretty sad little molecule. Bruised and beaten and generally tossed about. Not the best design I have ever seen, to be sure. Compare that to the nice Yoshimura kit.

The good news is that stock system weighs 26.2 pounds – WITH the baffles removed (at just under a pound each). Wait, that’s awful. We are talking an almost 30 pound system, that can be replaced with a roughly 13 pound system. Come on.

I will be interested to see what the throttle response is like with the new pipework.

The stock exhaust on the SV1000S definitely gives the bike some of its “big twin” character, thanks to the dual pipes – but the sound from those pipes does not do justice to the motor, and the pipes are so low and wide as to severely limit cornering clearance at the track.

To remedy this, I chose a single pipe conversion from Yoshimura. The system is not available on the Yoshimura website, but can pretty easily be found by searching for yoshimura 3/4 system SV1000S in Google. I went with a carbon can because the look complements my bike, and because I plan on outfitting the bike with other choice carbon bits as soon as they are available from Speed Research. Neat.

Internet wisdom says the installation can be difficult, as apparently the slip fit onto the header pipes is sometimes very tight. I had absolutely no issues with this. See below for more details.

Yoshimura 3/4 system install

(or, how to lose 11 pounds in 35 minutes)

Installation of the 3/4 systems is pretty straightforward, and the instructions included with the package were pretty good. Below is my experience with this very easy project. I didn’t take many pictures of the process as all bolts are very easy to find, and there wasn’t much trickery involved.

Materials required:

• Loctite for reinstallation of all bolts and fasteners
• 12″ extension (or similar) for your ratchet preferably with “wobbly” u-joint
• A breaker bar/extension that can be used with a 10mm allen wrench (or a 10mm allen socket for a long-handled ratchet)
• The kit from Yoshimura should include a an M8 nut for the back of the chassis mount for the new pipes. If it didn’t, don’t panic, you will have plenty of them from all the crap you take off during the install.

Time:

• I spent about 35 minutes actually working. I probably spent another hour BS-ing, weighing parts, and taking pictures.

Difficulty (one bleeding knuckle to five bleeding knuckles):

• One bleeding knuckle – seriously kids, this one’s WAY easy

Process:

1. Raise the rear of the bike on a stand. This is not optional, as you have to remove the sidestand to get the stock midsection off the bike.
2. Remove the belly fairing/chin spoiler/shovel. Just pop out the four bolts, and the gently stretch the sides of the chin spoiler outwards to pop it free of the mounting bosses on the frame.
3. Remove the bolts holding the mufflers to the passenger pegs. (If your kit didn’t come with one M8 nut, or you bought the system used and didn’t get one, hang on to a washer and the nut from the passenger peg muffler bolt. You’ll need it later.)
4. Optional: Remove the mufflers from the pipework (4 VERY WELL LOC-TITED nuts each side) or remove the passenger pegs for clearance. I removed the pegs cause they were easier to get to, and easier to wrench off.
5. Remove the two 10mm cap head bolts that affix the sidestand to the frame. These bolts are on tight. I had to use a 10″ breaker bar on my 10mm allen key to get the bolts to budge.

   Note: Removing the sidestand is NOT explicitly called for in the Yoshimura instructions, but the post for the sidestand spring definitely prohibits the removal of the stock pipework.

6. Loosen the pipe clamp at the front header-midpipe junction. Piece of cake.
7. Loosen the pipe clamp at the rear header-midpipe junction. Pain in the ass. If you are lucky, the adjuster bolt will be aimed such that you can get an extension on it by coming in from the right side of the bike (the brake side, not the chain side) just behind the heelguard on a stock footpeg assembly. I got it from there with a 12″ extension on a 3/8″ ratchet. A wobbly (u-joint) on the extension would have made this easier, but it is not necessary.
8. Loosen, but do not remove, the two bolts holding the midesction to the frame on either side.
9. With the pipe claps loose, remove the 2 loc-tited bolts that hold the front header flange to the front cylinder head. The flange will slide down the header. Clang it around it to make annoying sounds. I did.
10. Pull the front header pipe out of the cylinder head, and then twist and pull to remove it from the midsection.
11. Brace the whole exhaust system (or have a buddy hold it) and now fully remove the bolts that hold teh midsection to the frame. The incredibly massive weight (26.2 pounds baby!) of the system means as soon as you remove those bolts, it slides right off the rear header towards the floor.

    Check those pipes out! They are flattened and smashed, and likely as restrictive as a catholic schoolmarm. That can’t be good for performance. Plus, that whole assembly weighs more than a warehouse-store-sized bag of dog food. Sweet. Note also the removed sidestand assembly and front header pipe in the first pic below.

    Also have a look at how narrow the bike is without all those mufflers everywhere. That’s a big reason why V-twins are so cool. After swapping for this new system, you will be better able to take advantage of that narrowness with improved flickabilty and lean angle. Be excited.

12. Position the new clamps onto the fancy new (and incredibly light) midsection, such that you can get a wrench on them when they are installed on the bike. Use your head here. It will save you time later.
13. Slide the midsection up onto the rear header pipe (mine slid on with nearly no effort) and hold it in place while you loosely install the bolt to hold the midsection to the right side of the frame.
14. slide the front header pipe into the midsection (again, mine slid right in) and then pop the other end of the header into the cylinder head and loosely tighten the flange bolts to hold it in place.
15. With all fasteners still loose, wiggle and jiggle the midsection until you have it as snug and close as you feel is right. Tighten down the frame bolt, and then the front and rear header clamps.
16. Slide the muffler clamp over the midsection, taking care to orient it such that you can get to the adjuster once the muffler is on.

    Note: The muffler clamp will eventually need to be tightened A LOT. There will be a lot of threaded post exposed, and if you have it pointing directly at the swingarm, it will scrape when the swingarm moves. If you have it pointing directly away from the swingarm, it will look silly and potentially scrape YOU when you are getting on and off the bike.

17. Slide the muffler over the midsection, slide the outer bracket over the pipe, attach that bracket to the back side of the passenger peg (reinstall that passenger peg if you removed it before), and then tighten down the clamp. Keep tightening. It is way too big, isn’t it?

That’s it! Your bike is now 11 pounds lighter, sounds WAY cooler, makes more power, and has more lean angle than you can use without running out of tire. Not bad for half an hour!

After having crashed my SV650 on track due to a nasty headshake, I was determined to never again get a bike without some kind of steering damper installed. The SV1000S had such a damper, and I was therefore reassured that horrific headshake would be less likely to toss me off.

Well, turns out that after riding the ‘thou for a while, I found the stock damper to be too stiff, and actually a hindrance rather than a help on track.

I tried downsizing to a 65 series front tire, but then things were still weird. I raised the forks to compensate – still weird. The bike would lean in quickly, but counter-steering was artificially slowed down, feedback was reduced, and mid corner wallowing would lead me to run wide. Less scary than headshake, but not exactly great.

I decided I still wanted a damper, but I needed less damping. Enter Ohlins. I got a used Ohlins kit from an SV650 on www.sv-portal.com, and it bolted right up – the head tube bracket fit was a little off, but it was actually slightly oversized so it worked out.

I installed the damper on top of the triples so I could adjust it more easily, and also because I am a dork and thought it looked cooler than if it was hidden away behind the fairing. 11 clicks from full soft seems to be the ticket – nice quick steering, but no shake, even under hard acceleration over crests. Nice.

I also installed some Pazzo Racing levers that I bought at a great price from Moto Mummy, where the prices apparently raise the dead. Scary.

The levers far exceeded my expectations in terms of quality, and they fit up flawlessly. That being said, I bought the “Short” levers, and I think they are actually heavier than that full-length stock items. I am talking about tenths of an ounce, but still, I guess I expected that they would be lighter than the stock bits.

Regardless, they look pretty trick.

I have already posted pictures of my SV1000 on track, but I didn’t post any “Hey, it looks like this” kind of shots.

So, uh… Hey, it looks like this.

Well, it did. Before I started modifying it. Stupid winter. Too wet to ride, but not too wet to spend money. Damn.

My first street bike experience was aboard a Honda CBR600 F4i. I had only learned how to operate a motorcycle the day before, in the dirt on a tiny pit bike, and I was completely terrified to ride the Honda. The terror subsided about 5 seconds after I let the clutch out.

While not the pinnacle of sporting motorcycles, that F4i seemed to be wired directly into my brain. Before that ride, downhill skiing had been the most natural-feeling sporting activity I had ever experienced. That experience, the connection between the bike and me, was impossibly close to the feeling of skiing. I was hooked. I needed a bike of my own.

Through the kindness of a very generous boss, I ended up with a free motorcycle. Maybe not the sporting steed that I had so longed for, but something to get me out on the road. It was a Honda, but that’s damn near where the similarities to that F4i ended.

That Shadow 650 VLX lasted about 2 months in my care. I sold it to a guy who was tired of riding on the back of his wife’s Harley, and needed a bike to learn on. I am not kidding.

With the spoils from that sale, and a little help from a friend, I bought an impeccably cared-for 1996 Kawasaki ZX-6r. Though nearly ten years old by the time I bought it, the bike had only 13,000 miles, and the motor was nice and stong. Now I was on the track to recapture some of that sportbike magic.

Sadly, the bike had a scary front end clunk, and steering almost as vague as the plot in a German art film. Those traits, coupled with the dated styling and angry hairdryer exhaust tone still left me jonesing for something more. That bike was sold to some guy with a flatbed truck, and the much-missed SV650 entered my life shortly thereafter. Then that Sv650 died on track, and was itself replaced.

That’s right. Two years of riding. Four bikes. One Incredibly Understanding Wife. Pretty incredible, huh?