Tips on Modifying your Sport Bike

Tips on Modifying your Sport Bike
Hi, my name is Chad, I’m going to talk a little bit more about sport bikes. We’ve talked about different sizes, and about picking them out, and how that they’re basically race bred machines. Once you get your bike, I’m going to talk a little bit about some of the things that you can do to improve it. There are things you can do to improve it even a little further and bring it a little closer to race spec. A popular thing to do, most people do, is they change the exhaust. Either the entire from the engine back or sometimes they’ll just change what’s called the slip-on- it’s like the muffler. This muffler is carbon fiber. It dropped probably seven to eight pounds, maybe ten pounds, off the motorcycle, made it lighter so it’ll handle faster. It also is a little more free breathing. In concert with tuning the, in this case, carburetor, or fuel injection- most bikes are now fuel injected- the bike actually rides smoother, gets a little bit better gas mileage, and makes more horsepower. One of the biggest improvements you can make, and probably far more important than power, especially these days, is with the suspension. This shock on this back is by a company called Olens and there are other really good brands. It’s more of a race spec shock. It makes the back tire stick the ground a lot better. It’s much more efficient in pushing down. When you go over bumps, the back tire sticks to the ground. It has a lot more adjustably. It makes a huge difference in your handling. It’s probably the best thing that you can do to a bike these days, is put on better suspension. In concert with that, on the front forks it has Olen springs on this bike. You can also have a different kit put in it to make it act more like the front. Same thing- it makes the bike handle a lot better. When you’re braking it doesn’t dive as much. The front end sticks to the ground in a corner. You hit a bump, it goes over it a lot better. It’s a really good thing to do. They come with rubber brake lines. After awhile, they start to expand, so when you squeeze the brakes they get mushy. This has stainless steel brake lines- it won’t expand. It keeps your brakes hard and really, really powerful so when you squeeze them there’s no power lost in the squeezing. It just grabs the front and stops the bike. Just as critical are these frame sliders here. You will go down on your bike; these stick out- you can get front ones and back ones- different bikes, sometimes they have them on the frame here. It keeps the frame off the ground, the motor off the ground, and then sometimes these plastics. Protects the bike, keeps it looking a little better and running a little better. That’s just a few of the modifications, or a lot of different modifications…those are the major ones that most people do that will improve what is already a fantastic machine on the street.