To rake or not to rake ?

[kahuna]

Standing 6'5" 275 and having to learn that wheelies get expensive in fork seals, I want the 78 gs 1000 ec that I'm building to stay down.I've extended swingarm 3"and will gear appropriately.will raking the forks also help or is it not wise? Oh gs guru,what are the truths to raking a frame?

Thanks, Kahuna
83 gs750t,78 gs1000ec(under const.)

[Anonymous]

Raking your frame will have pretty much no effect on wheelies. Extending your swingarm is the correct thing to do, as it has the most effect. There are a couple of things you can do to the front to help reduce wheelies:

1) If you are drag racing, make a couple of brackets to allow you to strap the front down. This helps by lowering the center of gravity and eliminating fork travel that helps get a wheelie started.

2) Make sure your fork is set up properly with at least Progressive Suspension springs and new oil. Better yet, use Race Tech springs and cartridge emulators. For someone your size, the PS springs will be somewhat soft and you can choose stiffer rates from RT. Then set your static sag to about 35mm laden (with you sitting on the bike). Having a softly sprung, mushy fork increases the tendency to wheelie because there is a bunch of fork travel available for the front end to come up before the wheel comes off the ground. This allows the wheelie motion to get started before it has to lift the weight of the front end off the ground. A major bonus is the vastly improved fork action with the heavier springs and emulators installed.

Pro Street drag racers set their forks up to be topped out while sitting with the rider on board, which reduces the tendency to wheelie (a good thing on 300+hp turbo bikes! 8O ), but this is not practical for a street bike.


Mark

[nastyjones]

Raking the front end will have an adverse effect on handling. If you kick the front wheel out, it will want to "flop" over, in other words if you let go of the bars while riding you will head for the ditch.
Not a good idea. The swingarm is your best bet unless you are only dragracing the bike.

Paul

[RacingJake]

Well I usally don't rake untill winter due to the leaves on the ground. But I guess i could rake earlier.

I wouldn't worry about it. Not unless you come out of the hole at WOT dumping the clutch. Sence you have the longer arm it should help your wheelies. But remember with enough rpm and clutch input all bike's will wheelie.

[Planecrazy]

With all the fresh snow falling I don't think raking will do me much good...

How about leaving the forks alone and installing a wheelie bar? Then you can stay on the throttle without fear of flipping the bike!

Steve 8)

[gsbill]

Mark m gave you excellent advice...Go with it..