Anyone filled the stock damper with a heavier weight oil at all? or anyway to improve the stock one? cant afford an aftermarket one just yet :/ had a quick search, but couldnt find anything posted before. cheers
A few people have, including our venerable Deegee. Opinions seem to vary, but general consensus seems to be that (sadly) an improved damper is the better route. <a class="postlink" href="https://www.675.cc/675/viewtopic.php?p=284094#p284094">https://www.675.cc/675/viewtopic.php?p=284094#p284094</a>
there is a few posts around the forum some have rebuilt using better oil some were happy with them aswell i replaced mine with top mount radial damper and found the stock 1 had no resistance at all and that was with the bike covering just 2500 miles
Yeah had the front held in the air by a mate. Slapping the bars lock to lock, no resistance at all. Not nice, especially since having a lock to lock tank slapper a couple times now
I will be buying aftermarket, but dont have spare money right now. so looking for a cheap fix for now...
Fwiw, I tried everything I could think of to avoid having to splash out. After a whole season of surviving increasingly severe tankslaps at every trackday, I decided that even the most expensive one was going to be cheaper than the inevitable crash repairs & hospital stay.
Just been having a look around and it appears that Bitubo don't make one specified for the 2013 model (have sent an email to ask just in case). Started looking at the Ohlins damper on both T3 Racing and Harris Performance. Quite a price difference between the two, ) £480 ish delivered from T3 with their mount and £360 from Harris with their mount. Ohlins appear to only make one damper (currently anyway)......so why the price difference? Can't think that one mount is that much better at this price range and still the cheaper one be any good.
Ohlins is always going to be pricey but I can't see why there would be a price difference like that. Why not have a look at GRP/Pitbull type or Sprint if you want the cross tank type?
Personally if your damper is as bad as you say, you'll lose nothing by trying to put heavier oil in, the oem oil is like water, not even 5w imho, sounds like anything will be an improvement tbh.
Fwiw I find it fine on the road Lexwon (in fact I have my damper dialed back to nothing for road riding anyway) But when pushing it along a bit at track pace, it can tend to get "a little animated" at times. Well, mine does anyway.
StM hit the nail on the head, All the bikes are normally set up slightly differently, everyone is a different weight and everyone rides slightly differently. I've had exactly three occasions where the bike has *shaken its head*, two of them on double thickness chevrons when I've been accelerating hard and exiting the hairpin at Lydden Hill again Wot. I tried to improve the damper and failed when I first built my track bike because I thought it would need one, but after a lot of trackdays on that bike and having the suspension sorted I have yet to have an issue with head shake, I can only think it's down to individual cases if a high performance damper is required.
mine shakes its head most times in out on it, not a huge problem, but after 2-3 full lock to lock slappers, theyre not fun. proberly doesnt help local roads are fairly bump/uneven and that i weight only 10 stone. have had suspension set up for me weight as well. helped a bit tbh
