• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
     TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Scotts damper on '07 TE 450

chinski

chinski

Husqvarna
A Class
Im looking at fitting a Scotts steering damper on my 07 TE450, just after some opinions on how much a damper changes a bikes handling as I'm pretty new to dirtbikes & only been riding off-road for 1 year. I've been riding road for over 10 years & have fitted steering dampers to bikes that didn't have them & the change was awesome , just not sure how it affects a dirt bike & how the 3-5mm raise in bar height affects handling either.

Last time I rode the bike I hit a rock in 2nd gear & it deflected the bars & I came off, would a damper prevent this ? I've had fork springs changed to suit my weight & suspension set up by a professional already too & that made a huge difference & to handling.

Any opinions or ideas on dampers I'm happy to hear before dropping $550

Thanks, chinski
 
I'm about a seven year convert after riding and racing over twenty years without.

I find they help when I'm tired the most, and with fist sized rocks I can look past them, they aren't an issue at race pace now. I'd had my hands come off the bars without a damper in MX when exhausted. Everything I use for off road gets one now.

I just added a Scott's kit to an 06 TC450. They are good ones and not unlike my last KTM with a GPR, if it's working you forget it's even there. I hadn't ridden without one for seven years and after I had the forks valved I rode it. Without a damper it the bike felt very loose. Skittish. It's planted now, even when it hops around.
 
Thanks for the reply mate, just read a thread on Dampers in the 4stroke Austria section too & the advantages sound well worth it, will order one now & write back here once it's all fitted & have had a few rides so theres some info here for anyone else looking for the same :)
 
I've been riding off road for 7-8 years. I could never justify spending close to 500$+ on an "accessory" that I had never gotten the chance to try. Then i splurged on a scotts kit for a new te510 I bought about two years ago. Every bike I own and every bike I plan to own will get a stabilizer as one of first add ons!
 
That's good to hear mate ! cost me $900 Australian ( ouch ) but everything i've read echoes what you've said above, no one seems to want to ever ride without one again & i figure if it saves me from one crash that could potentially break a wrist / leg / finger etc then it's well worth it, if i came off from hitting a stump or rock that caused the wheel to deflect then broke a bone i would miss over 5 weeks of work & would be constantly thinking " i wonder if a damper could've prevented this"

not only for safety i want one but just feeling more confident & less fatigued when riding , will report back once fitted ! keen to feel the difference thats for sure :)
 
has been a while but thought i would update her for anyone looking later on.

scotts damper changed the bike !! it tracks over rough roots & rocks SO WELL !! powering up a hill before when the front hit rocks etc the bars would be loose & moving around & now honestly i can look at the roughest line up a hill, keep the power on & the bars stay straight, bike tracks straight & exactly where you want it to go !

have hit a few big rocks i didn't see & feel the impact but doesnt throw bars hard over.

i will not be owning a dirt bike without a steering damper again, night & day difference & heaps less fatigue in arms, money well spent !
 
Good to hear. A damper is pretty much the first accessory I add, before power mods or exhaust or any of the other sexy stuff :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top