[james71]

Thanks LB, but I don't think I have any "haters" ...just some who think I f'd up a new bike that was fine to start with. You got a sweet Gix by the way. Post up more pics of it!

[Luckybasturd]

Sure dude. If you're OK with them thats cool. It sure did look like they were hassling yaz over building up the Kat yuno? Looks freakin killer dude! How much DID ya pay?

[slamcool]

I do not see any pictures of the actual results... Must look cool.

congrats james... looks stock, nice one, just remember... want to speed up that turn in.. go for a 180/55 mate.

cheers.joe.

I dont visualize what you mean here, but I'm very interested to understand the concept...

I explain quicky how I see it...

- 190/50 is 190mm wide by 95 mm high
- 180/55 is 180mm wide by 99 mm high

The 190 is 10mm wider by 4 mm lower...
Their is nearly half a inch more rubber, the curving angle must be a little lower on that one overall, that must help putting a little more rubber to the ground... With 4mm difference... the profile is quite similar between the 2, would probably be unnoticeable to the eyes and very minimal impact on the odometer... probably unnoticeable too.

So there must be another reason that makes the 180 better... but I'm not a true racer so I would not know. Can you help me with this, I'm really interested and if I have a chance maybe upgrade my tires too eventually and try it on a track here.

Also, why do some people see it as diminishing the handling capacity? More rubber = more friction = harder to accelerate but = more capable of turning fast without losing the tail thought...

So 180 is more capable of holding the rear on the ground than 150 but 180 is a lot harder to move forward because of that added resistance...

It's true that overall, a weak bike with 180 could perform less on a track with long streches and wide curves... But the contrary is true as well, the 180 would perform better than the 150 on a slower and very curvy track were your strategy is for higher speed cornering!

I would see a similar but less dramatic difference in using 180 or 190 on certain tracks... depending on the strategy needed.

With the same idea in mind, on regular road with wide curves and long highway stretches, the 150 on a weak bike would logically perform better overall if you were to race from point A to point B around town freeways and stuff. But nothing to do with better handling on the 150... just better accelerations overall. The 180 would takes the hard curves faster yes... but these 2 little occasions here and there on regular road are nothing compared to the 50 stretches!

I mean... that's how I was understanding it so far. I'm a little confused now with all I've read here. I have to admit my knowledge is more on the car racing than motorcycle, so I realize there might be important differences that I need to understand better.

I'm new to the forum... Is there some highly competent racing and technical people here to bright my light a little better?

I can park my ego on the side and listen for more precise knowledge if I was wrong so far in my thinking....

thank you all !

[87vert]

For me, it's the perfect bike now. Many would say I should have just bought a bike with the qualities I wanted, but the Kat provided the desired canvas for my dream bike.


Mods are as follows"

D&D full system exhaust (loudest SOB on the block! )
Corbin "Gunfighter" seat w/ removable passenger backrest.
New fairings, w/out decals
Zero gravity windscreen "black"
Rear swingarm Modified, widened
03 GSXR1k rear rim, hub
Dunlop Qualifier 190 rear tire
ELKA performance suspension
Mr. Turbo kit
Frame sliders from Matthew here at KR (not pictured)
Smoke rear tail light w/ integrated signals (not pictured)

Total investment including buying brand new bike and modifying it into something no one except me wants....I'd rather not say

pics of the turbo....

[james71]

I did not mention the notorious "handling issue" until now because I had not truly put mine to the test, but I have now had a thourough track day and put my knee down for the first time. YES I now own a knee puck.

The Kat handles BETTER than before with the 190.
The handling is better accross the board. Cornering, entering, exiting, take-off, and EVERY possible angle in between.
I am NOT saying doing the mods I have done will make you corner/ride better. I AM saying it helped ME. I have twice the confidence now to lean it down low. Before I felt a slight jiggle in the rear as I started to lean. Now its holding the road and tight. Like it's glued down. I love the new feel. Stable and smooth with twice the contact of rubber to the asphalt works well for me.

So, there's my update on the handling...



(I'll get new pics in soon showing the fender eliminator, tailight swap, and a close-up of turbo)

[james71]

Oh yeah....and as for the "not pictured" frame sliders, they have not arrived yet.



I bet katanapr3 would vouch for the handling...

[katanapr3]

that's right James, the handling on my kat is alot better with the 190 rear tire. before when I had the 150 entering a corner at speed was realy scary, it would lose traccion and wobble. I also know that the stock tire on my kat (michelin macadam) were a pices of $hiat so that didn't help, but now with the michelin power pilot is a diferent story.

[slamcool]

So, there's my update on the handling...

Makes sense, it's what I expected... Must feel so much better I'm jealous!

[crazymofo]

I do not see any pictures of the actual results... Must look cool.

congrats james... looks stock, nice one, just remember... want to speed up that turn in.. go for a 180/55 mate.

cheers.joe.

I dont visualize what you mean here, but I'm very interested to understand the concept...

I explain quicky how I see it...

- 190/50 is 190mm wide by 95 mm high
- 180/55 is 180mm wide by 99 mm high

The 190 is 10mm wider by 4 mm lower...
Their is nearly half a inch more rubber, the curving angle must be a little lower on that one overall, that must help putting a little more rubber to the ground... With 4mm difference... the profile is quite similar between the 2, would probably be unnoticeable to the eyes and very minimal impact on the odometer... probably unnoticeable too.

So there must be another reason that makes the 180 better... but I'm not a true racer so I would not know. Can you help me with this, I'm really interested and if I have a chance maybe upgrade my tires too eventually and try it on a track here.

Also, why do some people see it as diminishing the handling capacity? More rubber = more friction = harder to accelerate but = more capable of turning fast without losing the tail thought...

So 180 is more capable of holding the rear on the ground than 150 but 180 is a lot harder to move forward because of that added resistance...

It's true that overall, a weak bike with 180 could perform less on a track with long streches and wide curves... But the contrary is true as well, the 180 would perform better than the 150 on a slower and very curvy track were your strategy is for higher speed cornering!

I would see a similar but less dramatic difference in using 180 or 190 on certain tracks... depending on the strategy needed.

With the same idea in mind, on regular road with wide curves and long highway stretches, the 150 on a weak bike would logically perform better overall if you were to race from point A to point B around town freeways and stuff. But nothing to do with better handling on the 150... just better accelerations overall. The 180 would takes the hard curves faster yes... but these 2 little occasions here and there on regular road are nothing compared to the 50 stretches!

I mean... that's how I was understanding it so far. I'm a little confused now with all I've read here. I have to admit my knowledge is more on the car racing than motorcycle, so I realize there might be important differences that I need to understand better.

I'm new to the forum... Is there some highly competent racing and technical people here to bright my light a little better?

I can park my ego on the side and listen for more precise knowledge if I was wrong so far in my thinking....

thank you all !

slam:

the 190/50 is a shorter profile (like you say 95mm) which means the tyres profile is flatter, which there fore takes more effort to get the bike to go from upright (centre of tyre..) to leaning (side of tyre).

also because the tyre is flatter in profile, its grip area is actually less then a 180/55 when banking hard on a corner

when you go to a 180/55 the tyre profile is steeper, meaning it takes considerable less effort to tip into a corner, and because of the steeper side profile, when leaning you have more contact patch on the road.

nowadays tho, more manufacturers now make 190/55.. which is even better (104mm high) which is quite all, and actually jacks the bike up, steepening the steering able, and thus makes for a quick steering bike, but with the rubber contact patch bigger still then the 180/55

cheers.joe.

[Sasquatch]

Lets see pics of all the mods

I really want to see that TURBO!

[Mat0302]

I'm still waiting to see the turbo too!!! where's it at???

[slamcool]

slam:

the 190/50 is a shorter profile (like you say 95mm) which means the tyres profile is flatter, which there fore takes more effort to get the bike to go from upright (centre of tyre..) to leaning (side of tyre).

also because the tyre is flatter in profile, its grip area is actually less then a 180/55 when banking hard on a corner

when you go to a 180/55 the tyre profile is steeper, meaning it takes considerable less effort to tip into a corner, and because of the steeper side profile, when leaning you have more contact patch on the road.

nowadays tho, more manufacturers now make 190/55.. which is even better (104mm high) which is quite all, and actually jacks the bike up, steepening the steering able, and thus makes for a quick steering bike, but with the rubber contact patch bigger still then the 180/55

cheers.joe.

Thank you very much for taking this time to respond me, I was not sure if I was gonna get one

In the meantime I had done some research of my own. Here is was I got:
The 190 has 4mm shorter profile, so the difference must be hard to notice between the two in our case here specifically, we can say they are of "pretty much" the same profile.
But your explanation about cornering being better on the 180 makes me wonder about the profile shape .... If the tire profile is from a perfect round shape installed on the proper rim, when turning there must logically still be more contact with the 190 because the circle of the profile must be of a bigger radius overall and therefore, with more contact at all time at any angle the road is connected to the tire when you race...
What you described actually make me think of another issue about rim width. From what you saying maybe the fact is that the profile you are talking about is not really perfectly round but more of a "ovall" like shape, meaning a multi-radius profile...
I found this in an interesting article:

http://www.sportrider.com/tech/tires/146_0206_tire_size/

I went further and checked on the side of MotoGP technology and advancement. You will be happy to hear that I discovered Michelin has developped new standards that follow the logic you explained to me:

In around the early 2000s they scaled down and introduced new 16.5" rear rims with tires that had a much higher profile that would still match the total circumference of the previous 17" rear rims...

This really allowed them to put more rubber and remove some wheel alloy. Lighter with more contact to the ground. We are talking a lot more than a 4mm profile difference.

Apparently at first, this made it harder for some drivers, they would not be able to do power-slides anymore because the better grip, also the wheel and ride was less rigid because of the higher profile rubber. This grips so much more on the road compared to the 17" that pilots actually "were twisting the swingarm like a noodle" and some redesign has been necessary. But the grip is definitely superior and will also help for the more HP to come in the next tech advancements.

Here's the link: http://www.motorsport.com/magazine/f...g&D=2005-01-13

I would conclude this:
It's does not really apply to the 180/190 of the same profile, the 190 logically just being wider. Also in 2004 motoGP went wider again on the rear to have more grip, they kept the same profile.

So you are right, the logic you explained to me is good and that's how they evolved in MotoGP.

It was just that the 2 specific tire we were looking at were pretty much of the same profile.

So you brought very good info and I think I brought some good too... We overall put some light to this on this tread.

Cheers and thanks again, because it was your input that made us dig further on the subject and understand
See ya!

[crazymofo]

your welcome slam.

nice research on your part too.

my last post was full of typo's lol, but hopefully you got the message.

but if i can make one recomendation on tyres.. its metzler M3 im running a 120/70 17 on the front and a 180/55 17 on the rear of my sv650. ive snapped footpegs (raise inch from stock) in half decking them from the lean angles, and dragged the exhaust constantly with them, they are brilliant tyres and handle 50deg leans with ease.

they get a little skatey (no slides just drifts) when its cold and wet and your pushing it, but otherwise, beautiful controlable tyres, with excellent feedback. and their wear rate is exceptional, used to get 3500km from a set of pilot powers, now get 5000km from a set of m3's with more grip and feedback to burn!

cheers.joe.

[slamcool]

your welcome slam.

nice research on your part too.

my last post was full of typo's lol, but hopefully you got the message.

but if i can make one recomendation on tyres.. its metzler M3 im running a 120/70 17 on the front and a 180/55 17 on the rear of my sv650. ive snapped footpegs (raise inch from stock) in half decking them from the lean angles, and dragged the exhaust constantly with them, they are brilliant tyres and handle 50deg leans with ease.

they get a little skatey (no slides just drifts) when its cold and wet and your pushing it, but otherwise, beautiful controlable tyres, with excellent feedback. and their wear rate is exceptional, used to get 3500km from a set of pilot powers, now get 5000km from a set of m3's with more grip and feedback to burn!

cheers.joe.

Okay, now I want them badly... You sold me the product totally.
I went on their site and looked, they dont have 150/70 of this model... sniff ... I'm so sad, I'll have to go wider and buy their 160/60.... so sad....

LOLL

But calculating 70% of 150 and 60% of 160...

It's dropping from 105mm to 96mm profile.... that's like 1cm lower... now that starts to make a quite noticable difference... Makes me wander a lot. And the speedo will cetainly be a bit off now if I do that.

The 190/55 at 104.5 mm you told me about would actually be probably better for the setup of the bike...

Hey you seem a pretty pro and experienced driver. My rear displays wear from one edge to the other, but the front has what we could say... chicken strips. What does it tell you about my driving style?

Gaining 1cm wide but loosing 1cm high... seems like not so different... but now we know that loss of profile changes the max lean angle does'nt it... From our research that's what is the logical conclusion when the profile truly changes.... I will definitely loose angle.

But.... The 150 on a 4.5 compared to a 160 on that same 4.5... is one more natural than the other? That factor changes all my questioning, because if the stock 150 is installed on a bit wider than necessary, it was not operating in optimal conditions... probably making the ride more sluggish than with the proper and most natural setup.

The more natural would totally be the best choice.

If it exists, a 160/65 (104mm) would really be perfect!

[StevieB]

Finally visited this thread. Interesting mods- am I crazy, or does it sound like he's building... an 89 Kat 1100?

I am thinking of changing the wheels on the Kat1100, if I decide to keep it and sell the Bandit1200. I would be going with... Bandit 1200 wheels and resultant modern sport-bike rubber.

Enjoy the work and the results, regardless.