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