Decay's 03 SV650N
Most Current Picture
Near the middle of 2014 (with self preservation being the primary driver) I sold my CBR1000RR with the intention of taking a break from riding for a while.
Well that didn't quite work out as planned because about three weeks later I was on craigslist hunting for another two wheeled mistress. Wasn't set on any particular brand or spec, just knew I wanted something with enough power to have fun but not so much that sneezing on the throttle in the rain instagibs you. I found a great deal on a 2003 SV650N.
I knew right away that I missed the feel of superbike suspension, and as everybody knows, the SV650 brakes leave a lot to be desired. At this point I didn't know that people could do front end swaps without a shop and fabrication resources, so I just lived with it for a while. I eventually found myself here and saw just how "easy" it is to swap on forks from the racier members of the Suzuki catalog. I began hunting for parts and came in to a pretty lucky break in December 2014, one of my co-workers had a crashed 06 GSXR1000 and was willing to part with it VERY cheaply. The front end included everything from the wheel to the controls, so I saved a ton of hassle by not having to find individual piece parts.
Then I was lazy for a long damn time and let the parts sit until I finally got an ultimatum from my fiancee to "get my motorcycle **** off of the back porch, now!". So... SWAP TIME!
First I put in an 07 ZX-10r rear shock, install was straight forward save for a slight bolt interference that I solved by spacing the dogbones with washers.
Realized I didn't have any way to support the bike so I bought a set of sliders from SVracingparts (Great guy, highly recommended!) and began the process.
Everything came out pretty easily hardest part of disassembly was probably getting the castle nut off the steering stem. Sat and thought about the problem for a while and ended up using some extra coil-over wrenches I had lying around from my track car.
Here's how she sat after day 1 (about 5 beer hours of work)
Day 2 was reassembly, bearings suck and I ended up making my own bearing driver tool out of some 1.25 metal piping.
Here it is with everything solidly mounted, some parts required a bit of modification, but nothing requiring more than a drill (and that was mounting the SV650 controls on the GSXR clip-ons)
I attached the rest with zipties for the time being to make it ridable.
No gauges just yet...
Anyway, here's a before and after (that I'll keep updated with a recent pic)
Most Current Picture
Near the middle of 2014 (with self preservation being the primary driver) I sold my CBR1000RR with the intention of taking a break from riding for a while.
Well that didn't quite work out as planned because about three weeks later I was on craigslist hunting for another two wheeled mistress. Wasn't set on any particular brand or spec, just knew I wanted something with enough power to have fun but not so much that sneezing on the throttle in the rain instagibs you. I found a great deal on a 2003 SV650N.
I knew right away that I missed the feel of superbike suspension, and as everybody knows, the SV650 brakes leave a lot to be desired. At this point I didn't know that people could do front end swaps without a shop and fabrication resources, so I just lived with it for a while. I eventually found myself here and saw just how "easy" it is to swap on forks from the racier members of the Suzuki catalog. I began hunting for parts and came in to a pretty lucky break in December 2014, one of my co-workers had a crashed 06 GSXR1000 and was willing to part with it VERY cheaply. The front end included everything from the wheel to the controls, so I saved a ton of hassle by not having to find individual piece parts.
Then I was lazy for a long damn time and let the parts sit until I finally got an ultimatum from my fiancee to "get my motorcycle **** off of the back porch, now!". So... SWAP TIME!
First I put in an 07 ZX-10r rear shock, install was straight forward save for a slight bolt interference that I solved by spacing the dogbones with washers.
Realized I didn't have any way to support the bike so I bought a set of sliders from SVracingparts (Great guy, highly recommended!) and began the process.
Everything came out pretty easily hardest part of disassembly was probably getting the castle nut off the steering stem. Sat and thought about the problem for a while and ended up using some extra coil-over wrenches I had lying around from my track car.
Here's how she sat after day 1 (about 5 beer hours of work)
Day 2 was reassembly, bearings suck and I ended up making my own bearing driver tool out of some 1.25 metal piping.
Here it is with everything solidly mounted, some parts required a bit of modification, but nothing requiring more than a drill (and that was mounting the SV650 controls on the GSXR clip-ons)
I attached the rest with zipties for the time being to make it ridable.
No gauges just yet...
Anyway, here's a before and after (that I'll keep updated with a recent pic)