Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

I was wondering if anyone has done any true back to back tests on suspension, tyres, brakes or brake pads with their bike.

A true test would be one with as few variables as possible ie changed one thing at a time. For example, bloke takes his bike to the track records a time on his stock standard bike then takes it in and gets a full suspension upgrade from one of the suspension experts. After the suspension, without any other changes to tyres etc the bloke takes the bike back to the same track and posts a time.

I guess tyres would be one of the most obvious....most will have run one sort of tyre and then plonked on another set and back to backed them.

Any significant results?? Any amazing ones? Any totally unexpected results??

road or track mate?

well I guess it wouldn't matter as long as there was a quantifiable measure of performance, time, distance, force.

Track would most likely be the most logical.

Most interested in hearing from anyone back to backing suspension to see how much improvement the few thousands of dollars made over stock suspension.

Most likely the single biggest area of improvement in performance on motorcycles would be the nut holding the handle bars??

I once worked with a guy from V8 supercars that measured the performance gains at Winton based on a sports sedan that I was working with.

He plugged in all the performance parameters of the vehicle and simulated a lap of Winton which ended up almost spot on what we were actually doing. Then he improved the suspension by 10% and that gained a second.

He then changed horsepower by 100hp....1 sec gain. Lost 10% of the weight..gained 1 second. Then he increased downforce by 10%...that gained a whooping 3.5secs at Winton.

I thought it would be interesting to see what happens with bikes.

sounds like you know the answer already tack.

Back a couple of years ago at Pi, I went from hard Bridgestone slicks, changed to 211ntecs, and dropped 2 seconds in the 1st 2 laps of the next session, and they ntecs were 2nd hand.

Not that times mean much as I wobble around but recent suspension mods by zenodamper to both my
roadbike and trackbike made them
go from awesome to phwah!!!!! Best mod ever

fireyrob wrote:Not that times mean much as I wobble around but recent suspension mods by zenodamper to both my
roadbike and trackbike made them
go from awesome to phwah!!!!! Best mod ever

you don't have to list the times but how many secs quicker was the new suspension?

Initially first session was slower by about 3 seconds but after a full day and some tuition I dropped 2 secs of my PB and felt like I wasnt pushing it at all. The bike felt more compliant and less nervous

Interesting questons tack.
Can't help u with that one, one thing i do kno is less weight is good!!
Mate ran a drag car some time ago, heavy chevy it was called, ran super stock.
He had this chart with times and weight, even losing a little weight gained a lot of time, ok it was drag racing,
My option, for whats it's worth!! do the suspension 1st, big gains to be had there, than maybe do brakes, esp on the zx10, stock brakes are crap, crap, crap, what was kawasaki thinking!!!!

Zx10 brakes are fine with the right fluid. I can attest to that!

Back on topic, I generally find a good 1.5-2 seconds from 2 day old control Tyres on Friday practice to new control Tyres on Saturday and Sunday at eastern creek.

On Fridays before meets, I'd struggle to crack a 38, then come raceday morning I could real off a low 37- 36.

Also could not get under a 40 with stock suspension, then after zeno's loving to the front and an Ohlins rear was into 38's without a problem.

All on a stock standard out of the box gumby.

Wattie wrote:Zx10 brakes are fine with the right fluid. I can attest to that!

...lol...so what's the right fluid??

Ok i stand corrected on the 07 brakes!!! mine must have been a dud!! or i just dont kno how to use them!!!
I guess thats why there is so many posts on the net all around the world about them.
I run hell lines, motul rbf 600 race fluid, at the time EBC HH pads, and yer they were bled properly, many times!!!
Threw the stock caliper's away, fitted nissin's, presto no more brake fade, at all.
But then again im not very qik, only 101.7 PB at broady, and PB at PI 147.7 when bike was still on road, so i guess i dont get to test my brakes much!!!

Tack wrote:

Wattie wrote:Zx10 brakes are fine with the right fluid. I can attest to that!

...lol...so what's the right fluid??

Gs610 or the newer version gs660.
Lately been using penrite sin.

born green wrote:Ok i stand corrected on the 07 brakes!!! mine must have been a dud!! or i just dont kno how to use them!!!
I guess thats why there is so many posts on the net all around the world about them.
I run hell lines, motul rbf 600 race fluid, at the time EBC HH pads, and yer they were bled properly, many times!!!
Threw the stock caliper's away, fitted nissin's, presto no more brake fade, at all.
But then again im not very qik, only 101.7 PB at broady, and PB at PI 147.7 when bike was still on road, so i guess i dont get to test my brakes much!!!

I used to use the motul 5.1 and it sucked poo. Never bothered with the rbf as I'd have to flush the lot as its silicone based.

My 04 brakes were as bad as my 07's. But then I did the nissin swap and they rocked.

But with my 07 I had to persevere as the rules wouldn't let me change calipers and race.
So ebc extreme pro and gs610 and my problems were gone and one of my stronger points has always been braking, and they stood up perfectly.

Tried a lot of different fluids at the time, same results, bad brake fade after a couple of laps, esp at broady, but broady is hard on brakes.
And i change brake fluid about every 5 or 6 track days.
But more than with them now.