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Funny as I started to do the exact same thing with my 09-20 rear yzf brake hanger but then Yamaha came out with a new revised one that was significantly cleaned up so I shelved that project & just bought a new one LOL
Keep up the good work & hopefully one day soon you can ride this bad boy!
In the past I had tried removing a mount entirely on my 2017 350 and went back to back with and without it a few times. It definitely made a difference, but wasn't necessarily an overall positive (or negative). But removing one entirely isn't a great idea for a long term use, so back on it went. This did give me hope that there could be some beneficial change with engine mounts, but needed more testing.
So with this new bike, we're doing just that! I took the stock mounts and made a very large hole(s) in them with the manual mill, cleaned them up a bit with the Dremel tool, tumbled them, then sent them off to anodize. Laser etching adds the finishing touch.
Now I can test back to back between these, obviously much "softer" mounts and stock mounts to see how much this really affects things. Even with the big hole, these should be a bunch stiffer than removing a single mount entirely, so this will be a good test of whether there's big differences to be had here or not.
Should this prove promising, we can then investigate varying stiffness in different directions, which is what's really important. Simply saying the mounts are "soft" or whatever doesn't help much at all. Stiffness is directional. You may want them soft front to back for comfort, but really stiff side to side for cornering precision (that would be my first guess anyway). So, that's a potential project for the future; this is just to see if it's worth doing or not. Plus they look nicer than stock!
Stock, unmodified:
Milling out pockets:
After milling:
Clean up with Dremel:
Tumble:
Prior to anodize:
After anodize and laser etching:
Installed:
I chose to go with Phoenix Handlebars for a couple reasons:
1) They're good quality bars
2) The owner is pure moto and a super good guy
3) They sponsor some rad privateer riders like Logan Karnow
The Phoenix bars only come in one bend, but various different heights. There's so many bends out there now it gets confusing. Phoenix took the most popular, and generally well liked parameters, and made that their bend. The bars are available in different heights, though, in 10mm increments. These are the 80mm height bars.
Here you can see the new Phoenix bars and the Precision Damper all mounted up. We're running our "individual" bar mounts instead of our standard bar mount as the damper bolts to the center of the bars and that would interfere with our one-piece anti-twist mount:
The Shop
Stocking these in orange means we have to stock in blue for husky and red for GasGas, plus there are two different axle sizes. So we would jump from two products to keep in inventory to eight! If they start selling like crazy, then that's not a problem; but it's quite a hassle for a handful of sales. We'll see!
I put a few laps on the bike, changed some settings, another few laps, made some more changes, then did two 30+2 motos. By the second moto it was feeling pretty good!
The following week (yesterday) I went back to Pala for another ride. Some minor tweaks and two more motos and the bike feels awesome now. (These photos were right before we packed up and I had taken off my custom painter's tape graphics):
Now it's time for some proper graphics! Working on that now:
I just added your guys adjustable link to my bike after managing to snap the stock one in half on a big case
So we came up with a design that solves both of those issues. We're using machined aluminum ends bonded to a carbon fiber tube. The ends hold rubber isolation mounts and attach to the bars with 3D printed, glass-filled nylon, clamps. It’s really light at 55g, plus the rubber isolation removes all added stiffness. The clamps are split so we can install this without taking everything apart (grips, levers, etc.).
It won't be as durable as a regular aluminum crossbar, but that's the compromise for light weight. If I hit this hard enough to break it, it's done the job and we can easily replace the 3D printed mounts that broke (that's the weak point).
Freshly machined inserts:
Carbon bar close up:
Complete crossbar (55g as shown):
Installed:
Close up of the rubber isolator in the aluminum end (same on the other end too):
Out of curiosity, what are the rubber isolators being used in this bar mount set up? I’ve been fat bars for some time now, but have much preferred the looks of a crossbar so this is an excellent compromise.
(This is also the new machined version of the clamp instead of 3D printed plastic.)
What do you think of the blackjack fork?
Pit Row
Im curious how it feels now with a few more hours on it?
Does it feel like Showa/KYB kit or more like WP kit?
langhammx was selling some titanium linkage bolts on here for a good price, so I snatched those up. This is my personal bike after all, and being a vet rider, there should be an excess of titanium... But seriously, this is a good place to cut some weight. These three bolts alone dropped 0.36 lbs off the bike, plus they just look awesome and pair up nicely with the Ti bolts on the MX Tech shock:
I wrapped up the design of the graphics last week, had the guys over at Split print them out, and they showed up the other day. Got those installed, and we're ready for the proper testing. I'll hold off on the full bike pics until it's released, but here are some teasers:
I can't show the actual photos until the magazine comes out as I don't know which ones they picked, but they came out awesome!
Then I ran up to Glen Helen last Thursday for a test day with MXA riders Josh Mosiman and Ezra Lewis. Trevor Nelson took some more photos and video that all came out pretty amazing.
Everyone was really impressed with the bike. My suspension setup is a little stiff for those guys as Josh weighs about 30 lbs less than me, but we made do with some sag and clicker adjustments. The full writeup is coming in a future issue of MXA.
This build is featured in the July 2023 issue of Motocross Action Magazine! Check it out wherever you get your magazines or via the online version (or check the reviews section of our website for the writeup).
The build is now "done", but anyone who's ever done a bike build knows it's never really done... We've switched out some of our parts here and there for more testing for future products, but it has otherwise stayed the same as what's in the magazine. All the parts I added to the bike were done because they're awesome parts from great companies, not just because someone was willing to give us free stuff. So, there hasn't been any reason to change anything but tires and our own internal parts for testing.
Here are a few photos that weren't published:
Bike looks amazing Billy!! Awesome job as always!! 👍
Nice Billy 👍🏻😎
Glad to see you are “done” with the build as it really did turn out great. Hopefully things can slow down a bit & you can pick back up on the 150 smoker 💨 !
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