[woodsracer]

These are the final specs for the bike I just won the 2020 ASMA Amateur Championship on (at Arroyo Seco Raceway in NM). Development was constant for the first 2 years, but once I got it to my liking earlier this season I have not changed a thing. I have learned a lot and am here to answer your questions so you can get your bike set up well - at least that's my intention. I detail a good amount of these mods in my build thread HERE. I am also about to sell the bike and will update this post with the classified link HERE.

Chassis Setup: as a reference I'm 6'1", 200 lbs geared up, race mostly at Arroyo Seco Raceway, Pueblo Motorsports Park, and High Plains Raceway, Arroyo is pretty bumpy which did guide my setup to an extent. This bike started out as an '06 but is really a Gen 1/2/3 bike.

• Bottom of fork cap flush with top of upper triple
• 1.0 kg fork springs, 15mm or so preload including internal spacer
• K-Tech 20mm SSK piston kit (SSRK would be too stiff for bumpy track), 105mm air gap (their recommendation was 115mm)
• 2015 triple clamps (drops fork offset ~6mm, increasing trail)
• Swingarm pivot raised approx. 2.5mm by machining some Street Triple parts to fit frame - this was to increase swingarm angle only
• Rear ride height ~1.5mm higher than stock position (tried to get back to stock but was limited in shock adjustment)
• Penske 8983 dual adjust shock w/ remote reservoir
• 9.8 kg/mm shock spring, 10mm preload
• Rear axle is about at the middle of adjustment
• 15/49 gearing (48 rear for one of the tracks here)
• Pirelli SC1 slicks, 32 psi (f)/ 25 psi ® - keeping them low soaks up bumps well
• Hyperpro RSC steering damper
• Dropped clip ons 10mm below underside of top clamp to get me in the right position

Engine Setup:

• 2012 engine (had 7k street miles when I got it)
• Rebuilt head, 0.010" skimmed (max to be safe for stock cam timing), kit 0.60 mm head gasket
• Replaced all valve springs, added spacers - this was the UKRS kit
• Replaced valve retainers, collets, stem seals, lapped valves, other things I'm probably forgetting - all OEM parts
• APE manual cam chain tensioner
• Gen 2 velocity stacks
• Gen 2 headers, cat and exup straight piped up to Two Bros slip on
• K&N air filter, dyno tuned to 114.5 hp by Brian @ Speedin Motorsports in Farmington, NM
• Motion Pro Rev2 throttle assembly (running RR cam)
• UKRS billet oil cooler
• Yoyodyne slipper clutch, OEM plates

Other:

• Used cable to connect laptop to ECU to configure and also tune with TuneECU - I can link to a cable that ACTUALLY WORKS if you need, I tried 2 others that either worked once then never again or never worked
• SES steering stops
• Woodcraft clip ons (would go with another brand next time to be honest)
• Woodcraft rearsets (these are great)
• 2016 R6 calipers
• Accossato 19mm master
• Galfer rotors
• SBS Dual Carbon pads
• Shorai battery

A few notes on the stock shock linkage which I detail in the build thread. I don't know if the swingarm pivot change helped or what, but I have data to show that my stock linkage is apparently VERY linear all the way to the bump stop. I am not clear on what everyone goes on about this bike needing a linear link because the stock linkage is so nonlinear. Not to say that a race link won't help but it does not seem to benefit riders due to the "more linear" nature of it because the stock one seems to be very much so (picture attached).

 

[proteus]

Congratulations - and thank you: I'm building a 2011 into a race bike, and that's extremely helpful.

My setup at the moment is:

Suspension:
K-tech DD20 cartridges (in the stock forks)
K-tech DDS35 Pro shock

Engine:
Akrapovic headers
Two Brothers M2 slip-on
MWR air filter
ECU re-map

Braking:
Brembo RCS19 MC
Vesrah RJL-XX pads

Other:
Renthal 16/48 520 sprockets
DID EVR3 520 chain
Shorai lithium battery
Zero Gravity double-bubble screen
Attack Performance rearsets
Renthal Gen 3 clip-ons (I quite like these - especially the laser etched measurement markings)

The things I'm inclined still to do are:
- billet oil cooler
- APE chain tensioner
- Slipper clutch
- Swap the calipers from my S1000RR over and get some new Brembo rotors
- Forsaken Motorsports linear rear link (it's a sexy piece of kit, though you've made me reconsider whether I need it ...)

I won't do much more to the engine, because of the cost / benefit (I'm not nearly at the point where 3-4 HP is going to make a difference for me).

My main question (as someone only starting to reach speeds where I should be thinking about it) is - what was the process by which you set up your chassis and suspension? Where did you start, did you have any references, etc?

 

[woodsracer]

You'll want to go through the process iteratively. I would start with geometry, then springs, then damping. Then back to geometry and so on, keeping an eye on other signs you are given. For an example as it relates to the 675, I settled on wanting to increasing trail by using the 2013+ triple clamps. I set the forks back to flush with the top clamp (keeping the ride height close to stock to keep that constant) before testing for the first time. This way the only real change I made was in fork offset. I felt like I couldn't steer quick enough so experimented with different fork positions to try to get the feel I wanted - I liked when I dropped the front a bit lower with that setup. Based on tire wear though, I had too much weight on the front and had to raise it again. I was getting a geometry tear about 1/3 of the way to the edge of the tire on the side used for the hardest trail braking area on the track - so that was the feedback I needed to guide my changes. So I got rid of the problem by raising the front back up and got the feel back by decreasing the fork preload and adjusting the fork damping. Generally, every change you make to geometry or spring rate should be tested without changing anything else, then preload and damping should be adjusted to try to get the best out of your new "hard" setting. If that doesn't work out, undo the changes and start over. This is a very personal process and I don't claim to be an expert, but generally you should be making educated changes to your hard settings (geometry, spring rate), see if you can make those changes work by fine-tuning with preload and damping, then evaluate if that was the right direction to go or not after testing.



In another example related to the 675, people seem to be running anywhere between 9 kg and 12.5 kg shock springs, so that's a pretty wide range. I tried a few higher rate springs and was having some problems driving out of corners with bumpy exits. The rear was harsh and I ended up dialing a lot of preload and compression damping out trying to make those springs work. My solution came after testing with a 9.8 where it was soaking up the bumps, not transferring directly up to me, and I was able to run a bit more preload and compression. The major point here is that this was MY solution, for MY bike with ME riding on MY local track. Your results will undoubtedly be different, but the process you use to get there should be roughly the same. Hope that helps.

 

[proteus]

Thank you - that makes sense. I suspect I'll need to progress a bit as a rider before the changes are apparent enough to me for me to be able to separate changes in my chassis/suspension setup from normal variation from lap to lap. Right now I don't think I'll be able reliably to be able to tell the difference between e.g. changes in edge grip / line because of changes to my setup vs. rider inputs.

 

[woodsracer]

Yeah I think consistency is key before any real setup effort rewards you much. Find a part of the track you are consistent, make a single change at a time, and see if you can feel a difference. An easy way to start feeling changes if your pace isn't up there might be to increase compression damping about 4 clicks front and rear, test it, then drop it 4 clicks front and rear from where it started, that could start giving you and idea of what feel you're after if you don't have much experience with tuning. Also, not sue where you ride but that gearing is pretty tall.

 

[proteus]

I'll be out there on Monday and I'll give it a go.

I ride on a pretty tight track, and I've definitely been missing acceleration. 15/49 instead?

 

[alpine 318is]

I'll be out there on Monday and I'll give it a go.

I ride on a pretty tight track, and I've definitely been missing acceleration. 15/49 instead?

Hey I'm gonna send you a PM. I may have some parts for ya!

 

[Remi Lessard]

Congratulations for you championship on daytona. Very helpful on build and result tanks you.
Do you run with race gas with - 0.020
How does it look you bike against newer bike like r6 and Zx6r

 

[woodsracer]

Do you run with race gas with - 0.020
How does it look you bike against newer bike like r6 and Zx6r

I took off 0.010" (0.25 mm) from the head and was running a 0.60 mm gasket (stock is 0.70 mm). I am over 5,000 ft in elevation and run 91 octane but I think you should still have no problem running high octane pump gas at lower elevations with that setup.

Milling the head by this amount and using this gasket will retard the cam timing of the intake and exhaust by exactly 1.25 degrees. You will have no piston to valve issues if you do nothing. I would not worry about adjusting the cams.

I ran with some pretty fast R6's this year and with the exception of one of them I did not lose anything on the straights. The exception I assume had some good work done to it because the bike did walk away from me sometimes and he weighed quite a bit more than me too.