Steering Stabilizer- I ordered my stabilizer from Nac's Racing and recieved it within a week. Installation is very simple, I have heard of people having problems with installation, but I don't see how they could have problems. First you have to bolt the bracket to the frame, and then the other bracket to the steering stem. Make sure the steering stem mount is about 90 degrees from parallel when the wheels are straight, like in my picture. Then you may have to move the frame bracket closer or farther away to get an equal amount of travel in each direction.
I got to try out the stabilizer at the track this past weekend (4-6-02), and it sure does make a difference. I had it set of 5 when I got there, and then tried it at 6 a little later on. At 5, steering was still pretty easy, and bump absorption was very good. Then at 6, steering got a little bit harder, but nothing to complain about, and you couldn't even tell you were hitting bumps with this setting. I race at a VERY rutted out motocross track, and where I noticed the most difference was when I went to pull in the clutch to shift. Normaly, I could only do this during a smoother section of the track, or else my hand would fly off the bars (yes, the track is really that rutted), and now with the dampner, I can loosen my grip on the bars to pull in the clutch and the brakes anytime I want to without the bars flying out of my hands! It also reduced arm-pump a little bit, which makes a huge difference in a 5-lap moto on a 2 or 3 mile track.
The Denton unit comes with 7 adjustments, which range from almost no dampening, to a point where you have to be pretty strong to turn the bars. One problem I had with the stabilizer was that on the steering stem bracket, where it attaches to the shaft of the stabilizer, there is a spherical bearing that was squeaking when I turned the bars. I couldn't find a way to lube it, because there are hard plastic seals around both sides of the bearing, so I just put two nuts on the bottom of the bolt and tightened them into one another, leaving about 1/32 of freeplay up and down in the bolt so that the bearing wouldn't have to spin as much as when it was clamped in between the bolt and the mount. This seems like a very high quality product, and I've been told that this is the single best handling mod you can get for a quad. |
