Chassis

• Renthal superbike grips Nice and small and they really grab your glove. These are jsut damn fine grips.

• Cheesey and cheap-o throttle lock saved my ass on the 500 mile round trip to Laguna Seca. I got one for a Honda or something. Piece of crap black plastic thing that you slide in between the throttle grip and the housing.

• Napolean bar end mirrors as seen on pics throughout the 2V website, these mirrors rock. They allow little vibration and actually provide a rearward view. They're adjustable from straight down, straight out, straight up and anywhere in between. These totally allow the bullet look intended for the upper fairing.

• WER steering damper for the SS. This thing kicks butt. It's a rotary damper that attaches under the steering stem. It has an arm that sticks out to the left and then a tie rod goes to a plate that you hose clamp to the frame. A little bit cheesey but an elegant and simple solution that works and is very unobtrusive. Available with 5W oil for the street and 10W for the track. I'd say if you get hard wobbles occasionally, go for the 10W.

• There is a Monster steering damper, too. It mounts under the triple clamp and goes back to and attaches to the horn mount. Nice low profile. (pic)

• Race Tech gold valves Indespensible for the stock shock, and a required for the forks. Go ahead and grab their oil and springs (for the forks), too. I skipped the springs the first time, and regret that.

• Race Tech fork springs My left fork seal blew due to some rust build up (ewww!) so while fixin that, I ordered up some 0.90kg/mm fork springs. They work great! I got lucky though, as I didn't cut the spacer, and the preload is exactly right for my sag with the adjusters all the way out! Since I weigh 195 lbs, if you're less, you'd better cut the spacer down about 2/3 of the height of the prelaod adjustment, if you're more than my weight, leave it be and use the adjuster.

• Nichols motor mount bolts If you ever remove the stock motor mount bolts, you'll be shocked at the spindly little things you pull out. I couldn't really tell if these were stiffer, but they are far superior to the stock bolts. You'll have to ream out the holes in the frame and maybe the holes in the engine cases, too. That extra trickery makes this a non-trivial install. Bring calipers, too. It's questionable as to whether the extra stiffness from the Nichols bolts contributed to the frame crack... The nut for one of these bolts is visible in the rearset pic below.

• I also picked up a set of Two Brothers Racing stands, and those are very nice! The rear stand is the one that just goes under the swingarm and the front stand has pegs that go up into the holes under the front forks. The only change I did was to drill two small holes in each to screw rubber stoppers to the bottom of the stands where they rest on the ground. Those things go for like $125 and $135, and are top quality large tubing that's powder coated nicely, with healthy wheels. Good stuff there.

• I put on a FOX shock! That thing is cool! I set it up 1/3" longer than stock, #3 on the compression, 12 clicks out on the rebound and 1.25" of sag. Just make sure that the locking nut on the ride height adjuster is seated down real good before tightening on the spring! (Saves time that way) I think its only advantage over the stock shock with Race Tech Gold Valves is the ride height and I didn't like how the remote reservoir bolted to the frame since I'm in there adjusting the valves every other month. I sold it to a guy for $420 with a few hundred miles on it.

• The Penske Racing 3-way adjutable shock is simply amazing. ( Picture ) I first realized it when going over an overpass bridge in a turn. I know just where the bridge begins and ends, with 3 and 2 bumps before and after. I went through at almost 75 and thought, "wait a minute, the rear didn't do ANYTHING!" And it didn't. In fact, the perfectly set up Race Tech forks feel like junk now because the rear is smooth as glass. When I test rode my 916, its owner also has a 900SS. We swapped bikes and rode up Angeles Crest. He liked the Penske so much, he traded me a stock shock, his Ohlins shock and $250 for it!

  

• Gio.Ca.Moto / Supermoto / DP rearsets. I normally would consider these as cosmetic, but not after getting them. All parts are on eccentrics: the peg and the part you shift on. In the lowest setting, the pegs are almost an inch higher than stock. Amazingly, they are inset over an inch! This dramatically improves ground clearance. When you click on the pic above for the big picture note a few things: beveled sidestand, high routed spaghetti header, top quality aluminum workmanship, and the extra hole in the front shifter arm. The right side requires a new rear brake hose - take notes and get an Earl's unit made. There are no provisions for a stop switch either. Also ensure that you're allowing the rear master cylinder to fully extend when you're trying to bleed it. Don't ask how I relearned this.

• To try and tighten the shifting, I had the shifter arm on the shift shaft milled & drilled to accept the tie rod closer in. This helps things a bit. Made the shift effort go up a little but did shorten the throw. The rear sets would easily accomodate GP style shifting and I had to tap out the right handed threaded end to fully bottom the ball joint.

• Dunlop D207 ZR They're OK until you start wearing leathers and leaning the bike over pretty far. You'll eventually find that you can spin the rear exiting corners.

• Pirelli Dragon Corsa tire. The same thing that Doug Polen uses to spank all of the competetion in AMA 750 Supersport (in `97 ?). The new MTR08 rear is rounder and the front MTR06 is more triangulated. They feel great. They have almost twice the tread depth of D207s and don't shread as quickly. These are the same as the Metzeler Race 3 tires. I rank this and the Michelin Pilot Sport as being reasonably close.

• The Michelin Pilot Sport is far better than the D207ZR and far cheaper than the D207GP. I have a feeling that this is going to be the street tire for folks that can really shread.

• Michelin Pilot Race - Save this for the track (along with the equally pricey D207GP and GP*) but even that may be overkill for average folk like me that are 9 seconds off the race pace. (15 off of the AMA pace)

• Dunlop D207 GP is long regarded as simply the best. They stick like glue but are very expensive. They ball up pretty easily too, making everyone look like a hero.

• With the Stage II jet kit, I ran the RK 520SO chain with great success. I even ran a used one that broke off of a FZR600 at Willow Springs for over 10,000 miles.

• I got the FCRs and immediately chunked the RK 520SO. So I tried the RK 520SMO chain. Absolute crap - couldn't handle the new power increase, so I've got a DID 520 ERV2 race chain in my toolbox waiting for the new Afam sprockets.

• DID 520 ERV2 racing chain This baby should retail for somewhere in the vicinity of $140 for our bikes, but once you get the carb's, you really should step up to a better chain. The RK chain went to junk in a couple of weeks. For bikes with just the jet kit, the RK 520SO is just fine, and it's super cheap, too.

• AFAM sprockets I swear by my steel sprockets! The rear is wider than any other rear sprocket that I've had on my Duck, fitting the chain perfectly. They also sell a 520 chain that has 10% thicker sideplates than the DiD520ERV2 and costs a lot less. It's the 520OHR hyper reinforced o-ring 520 chain. They make high quality alloy sprockets, too.