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11/10/2015
Location
San Clemente, CA, USA
Edited Date/Time
4/22/2017 9:13am
I'm in the market for one after too many bar-swapping good times. Does anyone have an opinion or preference? I'm leaning towards the Scott's as most guys seem to run it.
https://www.ohlinsusa.com/suspension-products/Motorcycle/MX%2B%2526%2BOffroad/Steering%2BDamper/38/Steering%2BDamper%2B2.1
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
I love stabilizers...but like wfopete said, don't try and fix bad set up with a stabilizer. a well set up bike shouldn't get headshake in most situations...
I don't really notice it when racing except when I disable it, and when I whip in the air you can feel it torquing against the fulcrum of your steering head.
I've been using the same UNIC damper since 1988, on a lot of different bikes. No parts ever needed, other than my making various 'sweep arms' for different bikes. The oil I've changed many times, of course.
A brilliant product. Much copied.
on my 300XC, moto and desert bike, i run one of these. the on the fly adjustments are fucking the bee's knees bro. i'll be keeping it when i sell my 300 in the future. i can stiffen it up on the high-speed whoops and high-speed trails and then with ease i can slack it off for tight single-track and technical turning sections. it's rad AF.
it's a Motosportz Steering Stabalizer, apparently they've been discontinued. i'd highly recommend trying to find one used somewhere, ebay, craigslist, etc... awesome units
Pit Row
The HPSD that I tried did not do enough to bother using it.
It will take some time to get used to it also.
I run a damper due to a damaged hand that is lacking strength.
the Ohlins V2.1 damper, is Ohlins latest design. This one goes under the bars. It's been around since the mid 2000's and as you've pointed out, they are completely different, but functions the same.
both of the Ohlins designs have RTC dampening, but only the older design has a free-bleed adjustment. This allows you to adjust damping based on degrees away from center. This will allow you to tune how restrictive initial bar movement is vs how stable the bike is in a straight line.
From their website:
The System 3 offers THREE fully adjustable circuits. High Speed, Low Speed, and Return to Center. All totally adjustable, with Low and High Speed adjustability on the fly- with no tools.
Return to Center - Control the protection/resistance level when handlebars return to center
LOW Speed (Red Nob) - Adjust on the fly resistance level when turning handlebars at low speeds
High Speed (Grey Nob) - Adjust on the fly the protection level for high-speed impacts, such as roots and rocks
I've never used fastway or ohlins. A guy I ride with put a race tech gold valve kit in the HPSD which made it actually work and adjustable......that was the trickest set up.
It's an under bar mount - with mounts I machined myself, that enable me to place the center line of the damper directly over the center line of the steer tube, when the offset is set at either the 18mm or 20mm setting. That stops the wear ( I make my own 'arms', for each particular bike I put the Damper on - it's takes only a few minutes to transfer then set it from bike to bike) you get in the slot for the arm / post interface, plus it gets rid the potential for extra / uncontrolled drag through material fit / debris friction on the steering, or a 'lock up'. 'Lock up' once happened when a fluke (tiny) stone went into the std long slot that was needed when the center lines of damper and steer tube were not the same. One in a Million thing to happen, but it was a nasty, nasty prang that came from it. Never again.......
With the std Kayabas offset is 24mm, and set at the 20mm, that alone was an enormous improvement in the handling / turning. The axle lug center to center line of the fork tubes were the same dimension, by the way, so the 4 to 6mm offset change is Just that. I use a WP CC fork (that I modify to be a True closed chamber - they are far from it std with their pathetic seal head, and pop off valve - it's a Big reason for the CC WPs inconsistency ) on my PDS'd CRE500. I use a PHDS Handle Bar clamp set, and had to machine my precious old damper to accommodate the 'travel' in the bar mounts. It took a lot of soul searching to start carving into the UNIC on the Mill, as, as I said, I've had it for near on 30 years.
The front end of a Motorcycle Is a Pendulum. Pendulums have frequencies where they will oscillate wildly. Without a doubt, sorting your suspension is important, but you've still that bloody big pendulum you're holding onto. I won't ride a bike of mine - be it Dirt or Tar, without a steering damper. Well, my trials bikes I do, as they have enormous steering rotation. I wish I could get a damper with (much) more degrees sweep than the UNIC, as in my riding, I could do with quite a lot more lock, at times.
I run very heavy high speed damping on the UNIC - to combat the hits from Rocks /, Ledges and Roots whilst laid over. Generally, I use just low / mid levels of slow speed damping, but I can easily reach down and spin that dial with the castellated adjuster I made. The alloy box above the damper is a weird little thing I made up in a hurry, years ago to protect the Bicycle Speedo / Odo that I've used for years. One day I'll get a fancy speedo / computer, but, meh, it does the job.
I spun my bar mount around towards the front more, it was only a 15mm difference maybe 10mm on my kx250f and it gave me mega headshake, turned it back and none..
Is this normal?
Decades ago, when I had some Fox 44s on a rather short front ended bike, I re-fitted ( I'd long since put Husky single bolt bar mounts on to get the bars over the center line) the std Fox mounts with the the bar mounts forward. The result was so bloody frightening, it wasn't funny. My bike was in the Parc Ferme of a multi day event, so I used my time at the end of day / beginning of the day, to put the Husky bar mounts back on. Worn tyres were left in place - I could cope with them, but not the "flapping about like undies on a washing line". I was an idiot for changing things without trying them before a very important, to me, event.
Head Shake - once again, your entire front end is a Pendulum. And quite a heavy one, at that.
He has incredible knowledge of dampers and he has always helped me out, he doesent seem to get the right clicks though because he has never been able to ride fast himself, it seems that he cant quite cope to get his head around for that.
Just got my Öhlins flow shock for my -17 crf450 today, gonna test it out in a couple of hours.
I do believe that i have one of the original steering dampers from the test age lying around as my dad was one of their test riders.
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