Shift Fuel Shoes Initial Review

As much as style matters, when it comes to gear comfort and function honestly come first. Upon watching my teammate E.T. take his 12 bar to his leg a couple times in a few days I decided its time to gear up for the upcoming season. No longer will I be riding in skate shoes, waiting for the unknown to destroy my feet/ankles. Found a deal on a pair of Shift Fuel's on SR that had only been worn once so I hoped on them as fast as they were posted up. About a week later I received an awesome package on the front porch.

First thing that I noticed when pulling these out of the box was that these thing are sweet. The styling and look and feel of materials is awesome.
When putting these on they are comfy and feel like they offer good protection. The loop on the rear of the boots help get your heel into them without cramming fingers in them or slamming feet on the ground. Decent laces tighten up the boots really well. Only complaint so far is the velcro strap to hold down the laces, time will tell if this is quality velcro or loses its "hold" over time.

Even if paying full retail for these I believe they are still a good buy. Great looking boot, feel great so far, and cheap considering how much a new ankle or reconstruct would cost.

Now I just need to get out and put these to use so that I can get an extended review on these bad boys, hopefully everything will be back from paint and powder this week so I can do work.

Review by : Jacob Lankford/ Outlaw_FTP

Budget Steering Damper for Kawi's

Headshake is something that everyone hates and fears. Nothing worse than being up on the front wheel rolling along at 70mph thinking all is well and then shakey shakey shakey, nothing is good, AT ALL! Solution? Drop some heavy coin on any number of dampers/stabilizer ranging from $350-$700. May get lucky enough to snag up one that is slightly used or missing a mount for cheap, but if not here is a budget damper that should do the trick for a little while. This is not the best damper by any means but certainly better than no damper at all.

Step 1: Locate factory GSXR damper, this one happened to be off of an 06 GSXR 600 my buddy had just laying around

Step 2: Remove torx head bolt from bottom of damper (as seen in pic above)

Step 3: Pump and slide rod/piston in and out with the now open hole facing into a drain pain of some sort. Dont stare into the hole while you do it. If you feel the need to do this, beat you head to wall please.

Step 4: Once damper is empty of fluid, submerge the damper into fresh new fork fluid, I used 15w. Make sure that it is COMPLETELY submerged while the damper is laying on its side in a pan/dish of some kind.

Step 5: Pump the rod/piston continually back and forth from fully extended to fully compressed until you no longer see air bubbles arising out of the damper.

Step 6: Fully extend the damper while it is still submerged in the fluid. Now this is where the tricky part begins, reinstall the screw into the damper while it remains submerged. Be patient, it will be tough to do as your hands will be covered in oil and everything becomes slick.

Step 7: Tighten down bolt before removing from the pan of oil. Remove damper and clean off with a non corrosive solvent as to not eat away seals.

Now that the damper is serviced and ready for use again, now we will start on the mounting of the damper.

There are several different routes to go about mounting the damper for several reasons, different years of bikes, and different front ends.
Simplest way would be to use a fork clamp as I have done and carefully calibrate where to drill the top of the air ram for the pivot point, (really only 1 shot at this so make sure it is exact). Want to make sure you hit your steering stops before the damper bottoms out.

Another way would be to fabricate a bracket to mount to the lower triple clamp, I was unable to do this due to clearance issues and headache after headache trying.

Be sure when mounting to the ram air port to space the damper enough to provide enough clearance in all directions and still allowing the pivot to still act as a pivot. Spacers can be anything from steel sleeve spacers to additional nuts.

Make sure that the bolt is tight in the frame!!! Also remember for the mounting bolts to use GRADE 8 bolts as you do not want to shear one off!!!

Damper - $0
15w Fork Oil - $7
Fork Clamp - $22
Assorted hardware - $5
Piece of mind when yanking up stoppies - PRICELESS

Total Cost - $34

Review/Build by : Jacob Lankford / Outlaw_FTP

Toss The Bike Protection: 08 ZX6R F.I. Cage Review

Crash cages, probably one of the most valuable/used/abused pieces of equipment equipped on a stunt bike. Protecting the bike so that you are able to continue riding is the most important aside from protecting yourself.
Out of all the cage companies out there, what is the best cage for your crunchy piece?

This is not a fly by wire type of review, meaning that I have been running this cage for quite some time not just a few weeks. Just to give you an idea of the abuse I have put this thing through, in the middle of last season while learning no throttle hand tricks I made the mistake of bbbblllliiipppppiiinnnggg the gas instead of bliping the gas when the front end dipped. Needless to say, I was all over the brake but it was not enough, bike slammed hard enough on the bar that it tossed me off the back, I ran and caught myself. After about a 15 foot long drag of my fresh new round bar, bike pancaked onto the left side so hard that it completely flopped over to the right side after catching a bit of airtime. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, trying to learn seat stander coasters seemed like a good idea for a random Thursday. After dropping onto my bar, letting the clutch back out and bike getting all squirrly, then treating my handbrake as an on/off switch the bike damn near caught some hang time and slammed side first into the concrete. Just a little back story of some of the abuse this thing has taken.

Depending on who you spoke to some would tell you that F.I. makes the best cages on the market, or the worst. Alot of those opinions are also based on the bike that they are placed on. This is not a review of F.I. Cages overall, just a review of the 07-08 Kawasaki ZX6R cage.

This cage is not as attractive as many of the other cages offered for this year of bike, or even other F.I. Cages offered for other years/bikes. Certainly when it comes to cages, function is much more of a factor than appearance, unless of course you are a glamor stunter.

Positives of this cage, absolutely no chance of busted stator covers, which was a HUGE issue on some of the earlier years of Kawi's equipped with F.I. Cages. Ease of removal and install were a huge bonus, even if I ran full fairing this cage would still be as simple to install and remove as frame sliders. Never once has this cage allowed my bike to roll up onto my tank, even with the severe tosses and slams that I have put it through. Others that I have seen running different brands of cages have had issues such as rolling up on the tank, or even caving the frame in at some points. Another great point is that I have not once banged my shins on this cage, except for an incident involving a stuck throttle and a curb. :-)

Now moving onto the negative of this cage, first and foremost being PRICE, retail on these cages has gone up over the past year, thankfully I did not pay that for this one. (Gotta love gently used parts for sale on www.stuntride.com for cheap) Second issue that I have about this cage is the sliders, for several reasons. Sliders are an important part of cages, to soft and they are gone in one scrape across the lot, too hard and they shatter into pieces. I believe that the composition of the sliders offered on F.I. Cages is a good balance.

Unfortunately, the length of sliders is the issue on this particular cage, after a couple tosses of the bike, the sliders are worn down enough that they do not contact the ground before the hoop. The hoop contacting the ground before the slider causes a few issues, putting unnecessary stress on the hoop (thus the opposite slider), and grinding away at the wall of the tubing that the hoop is made of, eventually causing the hoop to be warn through.

I already know what you are saying, buy new sliders and it will save the hoop, yes that is correct. Buying sliders every 2-3 crashes per side is not the most cost effective option ($30 bucks a pair). If the sliders where longer, or the hoop was mounted further inside on the slider then it would also help greatly with this issue.

This is not a review conducted after a month or two of riding with this cage, time with this cage is approaching the one year mark. Overall I believe that the F.I. Cage on the 07-08 ZX6R is a good overall product but could use some further r&d to make it great.

Reviewed by Jacob Lankford/ Outlaw_FTP

Doing Work Off The Bike

Trying to put in as much work off the bike as on it recently, prepping for the quickly approaching season..
Here is what E.T. has accomplished off the bike just today....

Now its time to get cracking on a legal lot so that we can do some work on the bike!!!!!