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I did it to my stock Honda clamps, took 30 minutes
In the top shot of KR's bike, there's a difference between the top and bottom clamp.
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In the early years of billet aftermarket clamps, there were a lot of lower clamp failures. Material has changed and they are made stronger to avoid that issue.
The upper clamps are often cast pieces, cheaper to make and don't have to be as strong as the lower.
It is all about the flex and how the clamp works with the fork, there are times that stock is best!
You still will see this sort of thing in the pits, especially at MotoGP levels. They'll use all sorts of 'solutions' - whatever is required for the riders or the engineers desires.
Check out just how varied the machining ideas are with regards to just triple clamp selection, in any form of our motorcycle sport. It can make a significant difference to a riders feel. Many would be shocked to see just how minimal many Moto GP bikes triple clamps appear to be - well, just go into a few dealerships and have a squizz at a variety of companies highest end Sport bikes triple clamps nowadays - some times, there's more 'air' to them than you'd think you'd ever see.
philG : A mate of mine was part of the TM Australias race efforts up til a few years ago. He played with various offsets, and found he really liked a set that the Team had modified to 14mm offset - for SM usage, but this was on his EN300, for Enduro usage. They'd done it by welding up the clamps, welding the surface of what appeared to be an original spacer / insert, then re-boring the steering tube center. He loved it - but one day he complained about his bike becoming 'vague'. I found the lower triple clamps welding had packed out - it was truly an atrocious job that had been done. I had to re-machine the clamps, the steer tube and make new inserts to put it right. I was that paranoid about it all, that I also welded a plate to the (strangely, for TM -it seemed to me- steel) steer tube, that keyed into the front mudguard mount pattern - the clamp and steer tube were going nowhere, after that.
This shows the SM set up they'd made - those dark sections on the clamp, and the press in spacer, are weld occlusions - yes, they didn't even use a 'virgin' bit of alloy stock for the steer stem to clamp spacer. The lower bearing shield, and, hence the bearing, was sitting only on those few raised sections available due to the piss poor welding - the original 'modifiers' didn't do anything properly. The stem /and insert were merrily rocking away in the badly welded triple clamp:
I machined the triple clamp ID, and faces, to get as much non badly welded section as possible for the interference fit, and had a far wider 'top hat' stopper insert as compared to the original insert that's below it:
And the , 'for the fearfully paranoid' builder within me - the 4130 plate welded to the press fit steer tube, that keyed into the mudguard mounts, and, after the fit, another couple of fixating pins. I wanted my friend to be safe. Those chicken shit welds on the clamp you can see, are Not mine, by the way - cripes I think my first TIG welds in the seventies as a 12 year old were better than those:
Some 'engineers', are truly, not to be trusted!
We had a set of 11mm offsets done for the Aprilia, which worked well on the best bike we had , but didn't work so well on customer bikes, which used 14mm instead.
The 300SMX's have proper clamps , and we have the proper frame geometry as well, but we have had a bespoke top clamp made to use our factory Marzocchi Shivers from our EX Mauno Hermunen 449 Husqvarna.
The difference any change makes in geometry is easy to find on Tarmac , but its also easy to get lost.
Pourcel also ran them on the Yamaha.
Pit Row
I had also forgot about the benefits of changing the rear linkage. Changing the rear gives the forks more adjustability. Good article in there about that as well.
I would be interested if he ran that linkage with the stock clamps. If he did, it would make his dads claims that "he was faster on a stock bike" seem less far fetched.
I've never seen stock clamps before. But I guess it's more popular then I thought if pourcel has run oem clamps in his race bike
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