New to the Forum with information and pics

[youngoldindefatigable]

I've been looking and gathering information from this board for a few month now, I just wanted to thank everyone for helping out. I've learned a lot from all of you.

My bike (2008) Duke 690 SC project full exhaust and stock air filter. Perelli Rosso tires. Stock suspension street setup with 35mm sag in the front and 48mm in the back. This was recommended by the suspension tech at the shop by where i work.

I bought the bazzaz fuel managment system with the intention of putting it on the dyno to help try and reduce the rough ride when going around or under 3k rpms in first and second gear. if anybody wants to see the install instructions I can email them to you.

Before the dyno was done I had the worker do the 2nd and 3rd gear restriction mod for me. My review: after 2 days of riding and 1 day of hard riding on the track (ORP) in Oregon. The bike runs a lot smoother, I can just let go of the clutch now and the bike will take off. No stalling because of not enough gas. As far as the power, well It does not feel much different than before. I'm disappointed because I was expecting a noticeable difference but to be fair I never rode the duke on the track before the dyno and bazzaz. I've attached pics of the dyno results, no where near the 65 HP that is claimed by KTM. Does KTM measure the HP by the crank or rear wheel? Sorry for the crappy picture my scanner is not working. Overal I'm happy that the dyno helped smooth out the bike but I'm not very happy with the performance gains.

On the way to the track I got a top speed of 119MPH. I was stuck on 119MPH for about 4 seconds it would not go faster. This was done by going into 6 gear and just full throttle if I would have down shifted before and then ran the RPM's up maybe I could have gone a little faster, i don't know? I was on a flat surface with maybe a little incline at 3000 feet of elevation.

Duke rules! Thanks for reading and enjoy the riding season.

[Kamikuza]

Nice!

Smoother is always better dyno's are notorious for wildly varying readings ... I wouldn't worry, especially if you're at altitude ...? You got nearly 10% improvement for a few tweaks, I call that a good result.

Preload or sag - should be set according to your weight. There's no magic number for it ...

[youngoldindefatigable]

Regardless of what the dyno numbers say I can't really tell much of a difference. Yes I got the sag set according to my weight. I know for sport bikes there is a range where you want the sag to be for track use so yes there are magic numbers. A 130lb person and a 250lb person should be in the same range of mm for sag.

[Momo1970]

We all know that 65 hp or 60 hp do not make any diffrence on how fast you really ride. This is exactly why we sold our super bikes and got the Duke ;-)
The super bikes will smoke you on the track track straight even if you have the Duke R with 70 hp...
It was great fun to chase my buddies riding cbr1000rr, and gsx 1000r on my Duke last Sunday. For the first time in 25 years of owning bikes, I finally have a bike that I have no idea how to make go faster, other then improving my riding skills.
So do not get dissapointed from dyno power charts, just ride it hard the way it is designed for!

[Kamikuza]

Sounds like you got it - I was having a brain fart and read what you wrote totally the wrong way

[youngoldindefatigable]

Yeah your right, this bike is so much fun this was my first time on the track and I rode the bike so hard, a word of advice don't down shift from 3rd to 2nd when going 70mph the gear sort of locked up on me during mid corner and made a grinding sound until I shifted again? I think I down shifted into the rev limiter I don't know but it happened twice. I'm happy with the power I just don't like getting passed on the straights at the track. I would like the rev limiter a little higher but actually now that I'm thinking about it I can feel a little more power at the top end after the dyno tune than before but down below the power feels the same. I can honestly say this is one bike that I don't want to sell ever. I can still dump a bunch of money into it but I'll wait for next year.

[youngoldindefatigable]

no problem Kamikuza, I was started to second guess myself after what you said.

[Momo1970]

Think about how the riders that you pass mid corner....at least you have the lack of power to blame when they pass you on the straight away...

[Reshad]

Originally Posted by youngoldindefatigable

Regardless of what the dyno numbers say I can't really tell much of a difference. Yes I got the sag set according to my weight. I know for sport bikes there is a range where you want the sag to be for track use so yes there are magic numbers. A 130lb person and a 250lb person should be in the same range of mm for sag.

Hi all, if I may take youngoldindefatigable up, if you're still around, on what he said about the weight to sag relationship... does anyone know of more precise shock settings other than what KTM issued as guidelines?

I weigh about 137lbs (62.5kg) and would like some advice the settings for best racetrack performance for:

The front
1) Damping
2) Rebound damping

and

For the rear
3) Compression damping for low-speed
4) Compression damping for high-speed
5) Rebound damping

The user manual gives guidelines for "Sport mode" but no indication of user weight which I can understand must be taken into consideration when setting the bike up for the owner.

Any discussion of the matter would be appreciated. Cheers

[youngoldindefatigable]

As I posted earlier "Stock suspension street setup with 35mm sag in the front and 48mm in the back. This was recommended by the suspension tech at the shop by where i work" He told me supermoto suspension is different than a superbike. I weigh 130lbs and the mm are with me on the bike. This video may help

You Tube

You Tube