Trackday Goodness!!

[yzfgryphon]

Well, first track day in about ... 2 years... went pretty well, and I didn't crash. I have video to post as well :) I decided to take the EX which was fun, but almost made me poop myself a few times. I played corner worker and switched off every other session so it was a good opportunity to rest in between

Comments

[mrcrash]

I started off feeling really awkward with my rights. Playing around with a more neutral body position that kept weight off my throttle hand helped.

[tomatoe333]

Seems like a lot of riders have trouble with right turns. I've noticed it myself. I've scraped plenty of left-side pegs, but only once on the right.

[beknatok]

Rock on! Glad to see you getting back out on the track and doing what you love. Cannot wait to see the vid clips!

[tomatoe333]

. There were several very uncomfortable turns where the EX's front end would wobble around before planting but it never really conveyed and stability.

The stock front end on an EX is pretty crappy. The cheap way to improve it is to cut down the springs to stiffen them, and use pieces of aluminum stock as shims to set the preload. Then run thicker fork oil to damp it a bit better. You might have to go through some trial and error to get it right, but I'm sure your local wrecking yard has a few sets of EX springs. :-)

The rear gets a bit more expensive, unless you modify something like a GSX-R shock to fit.

The leaky valve cover is about a 10 minute fix, and I think a $13 part. This is one place where you probably want to use the stock gasket, instead of yamabond. The silly little half moons at the ends are hard to seal up otherwise.

Oh yeah, and replace that pinch bolt. I bet the forks get a lot less loosy goosy. :-)

*makes a mental note to sign up for one of the Penguin racing school track days this spring*