ioneater
Husqvarna
AA Class
Just got this baby hot off the truck a couple days ago. One thing to note, I've got a fairly unique setup for bar mounts as I'm using HDB lowers, uppers and guards. The lowers are not standard Husky spacing like before and are a proprietary bolt pattern spacing as of when I purchased my setup about this time last year (see pics).
Installation:
My first damper installation. Not as seamless as I was expecting. Motosportz is not exaggerating when they claim tight tolerances on their products. I had a bit of a struggle getting the collar pin to engage the damper arm at the arm's slot closest to the pivot point. I believe this is due to the handlebar's rubber bushings having some give and take that can effect that particular fitting point's alignment. My setup required having the pin located on the inner most portion of the arm's engagement slot.
One other significant thing to note:
Watch your clearance at the handle bar mount nuts under the triple clamp and the damper collar tightening screw. I had to adjust the steering stops outwards a LOT, particularly on the left side to prevent contact between the collar screw and the bar mount nuts.
This guy is SO serious. Lighten up Francis! He's a tough critic..
Got everything bolted down. I'm going to have to find some longer bolts for the main bar mounts. Motosportz supplies longer length hex head bolts to compensate for the extra depth (about 3/4" it looks to be) their underbar mount creates using stock handlebar mounts. As mentioned above, I'm using newer HDB lower mounts which are a tad taller than stock and can't accept hex head bolts regardless (only allen type, which kinda sucks as they aren't self holding when removing the nuts on the bottom).
No issue what so ever between Motosportz's collar and the 2.9G IMS on my bike!
Now on the to the ride report.
I'm new to dampers, never had one before and have ridden a bike with a Scott's once for a short hop. Motosportz's description on their website concerning the operation of their product is very accurate! I had the adjustment set between straight up and the S position to start with, about 25%. I felt like I was riding a different motorcycle! The terrain ridden was damp PNW dual track transitioning to single track the further away we proceeded from the parking lot. Lots of small-mid size rocks litter the trail along with angled roots, submerged versions of both and hidden stumps from trail maintenance on the edges. I crashed several times the 1st half of the ride! I discovered I was trying to compensate for what the damper was going to do and thus doubling the correction in some cases instead of letting the unit do its job. Retarded, I know. The places I went down were easy riding, actually. I plodded right through all the twisted technical crap and made the most mistakes on more open flowing stuff.
The damper did a great job taking care of angular rock, root and rut excersions that I normally would have been wrestling with. I played around on some whoops and definitely could feel the damper working its magic on the front wheel and further increased the damper adjustment to about mid-range with excellent results, less work for my arms and less tendency to start the death swap!
I'm looking forward to riding a lot more with the damper and tweak it to how I ride. I definitely recommend it for these x-lite frames in the woods. They are very twitchy and you may not realize how twitch they are until you try a damper!
Installation:
My first damper installation. Not as seamless as I was expecting. Motosportz is not exaggerating when they claim tight tolerances on their products. I had a bit of a struggle getting the collar pin to engage the damper arm at the arm's slot closest to the pivot point. I believe this is due to the handlebar's rubber bushings having some give and take that can effect that particular fitting point's alignment. My setup required having the pin located on the inner most portion of the arm's engagement slot.
One other significant thing to note:
Watch your clearance at the handle bar mount nuts under the triple clamp and the damper collar tightening screw. I had to adjust the steering stops outwards a LOT, particularly on the left side to prevent contact between the collar screw and the bar mount nuts.
This guy is SO serious. Lighten up Francis! He's a tough critic..
Got everything bolted down. I'm going to have to find some longer bolts for the main bar mounts. Motosportz supplies longer length hex head bolts to compensate for the extra depth (about 3/4" it looks to be) their underbar mount creates using stock handlebar mounts. As mentioned above, I'm using newer HDB lower mounts which are a tad taller than stock and can't accept hex head bolts regardless (only allen type, which kinda sucks as they aren't self holding when removing the nuts on the bottom).
No issue what so ever between Motosportz's collar and the 2.9G IMS on my bike!
Now on the to the ride report.
I'm new to dampers, never had one before and have ridden a bike with a Scott's once for a short hop. Motosportz's description on their website concerning the operation of their product is very accurate! I had the adjustment set between straight up and the S position to start with, about 25%. I felt like I was riding a different motorcycle! The terrain ridden was damp PNW dual track transitioning to single track the further away we proceeded from the parking lot. Lots of small-mid size rocks litter the trail along with angled roots, submerged versions of both and hidden stumps from trail maintenance on the edges. I crashed several times the 1st half of the ride! I discovered I was trying to compensate for what the damper was going to do and thus doubling the correction in some cases instead of letting the unit do its job. Retarded, I know. The places I went down were easy riding, actually. I plodded right through all the twisted technical crap and made the most mistakes on more open flowing stuff.
I'm looking forward to riding a lot more with the damper and tweak it to how I ride. I definitely recommend it for these x-lite frames in the woods. They are very twitchy and you may not realize how twitch they are until you try a damper!
