POLL: How many people are running frame sliders?

[professorman]

As the toic states, I am trying to find out what are your views on frame sliders.

I know one of the biggest cons against them is that if your bike falls in the wrong place, it can get caught in a pothole, or mud or something and cause your bike to tumble instead of sliding smoothly onlong on the side. What are you guys take on this view?

[hellcamp]

I have Braunstein's sliders on my Kat. I put them on coz on a bad day, the Kat can get a little bit heavy to maneuver around a parking lot. And well, these are supposed to snap off in case of a high speed impact. Let's hope none of us have to find out.

[fordfurious]

high speed impact your bike is going to be totalled by insurance anyways. i hard mounted some frame sliders. for droppings and such. a couple of times i have been stupid and dropped it where it stood and the sliders would have stopped scratchings on the fairings.

[lance]

so now instead of scratched fairings you end up with perfect fairings and a trashed frame...

[fordfurious]

no , im not dropping the bike from on top of a building.

[TravisM.1]

so now instead of scratched fairings you end up with perfect fairings and a trashed frame...

I'm pretty new to sportbikes and all, but I always thought the sliders were meant to keep exposed parts of the frame from getting trashed.

[tzortn]

so now instead of scratched fairings you end up with perfect fairings and a trashed frame...

I'm pretty new to sportbikes and all, but I always thought the sliders were meant to keep exposed parts of the frame from getting trashed.

Unlike SS bikes such as the GSXR the Katana is not designed with threaded bosses for frame sliders. The bosses on a SS bike are sized to take a hit from the slider in a crash.

There are two ways to attached frame sliders to a Kat. The first is to drill a hole in the frame and bolt the slider in place through that hole. Over tightening the bolt can crush the frame so can dropping the bike on its side. The Kat is a heavy bike dropping that weight onto a frame slider puts a lot of stress on the frame.

The second way to mount a slider is to use a bolt on bracket like the ones Braunstein makes. If designed properly a bolted on mount can distribute the load over a much greater area therefore reducing the stress in the frame.

[ZukiFred]

My personal opinion is that my kat was not designed for sliders so I will not be puting them on. But that is just my opinion.

[professorman]

so, is the one Braunstein make okay for the katana? or does that still give a relatively good amount of damage to the bike if dropped at speed over 30MPH?


When I first bought my kat, it had been crashed before. The front rim was bent bad. The fairing however was scratched up REALLY bad. That is until I put some gooGone and realized that it was mainly tar being stuck to the fairing, and i reduced most of the cracthes to about 80% of what it looked like before, so now, it actually looks presentable instead of looking awful. I can see if he had frame sliders and he dropped at that speed, the guy might have caused frame damages. What do you guys think about a drop like my situation?

[BRAUNSTEIN82]

Hear we go again, there was a topic about this that has disappeared. As perviously stated a wreak at high speeds usually is totalled but a drop from a stand still or stop as i have done several times you are trying to hold the bike up so in essence you slow the spped of the drop, i agree drilling a hole into the frame sets the impact directly on frame which possably causing more risk for damage. My brackets are designed to mount it futher from the frame, and provide several give points to protect the fram:
1- the derlin plastic slider will break only small pieces at a time and absorb impact
2- the off set aluminum bracket will absorb impact with flex and if needed bend.
3 in high impact the bolts will break the fine aluminum threading and bracket will give all together ( which can cause other damages ),

Ill state as my disclosure that comes with them does they are not designed for high impact. But another way to look at that is if you go into a 60mph slide ( reason for calling them sliders ) your fall over impact is not hard do to the fact of the high speed foward motion. If the bike was to flip then yes there woulb be a hard impact, but more that likely the bike would be totaled anyways.

Can we sticky this topic so it doesnt have to keep being reexplained. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask or call Matthew 910-590-2939.

[fordfurious]

i know yall are against the frame sliders, but maybe you arent getting how i mounted these on corrrect. they are not just sticking off of the frame with a bolt holding them down. a larger hole was cut in the front and as you can see in the pic. that whole beveled part goes inside the frame to the backside of frame. i then drilled hole just big enough for bolt to mount through in the backside of the frame. therefore, the bike has just as much reinforcement if not more than the other bikes.

[fordfurious]

i didnt use those bolts though they were much too long. i went to machine shop to get proper but shorter ones.

[iwannadie]

i know yall are against the frame sliders, but maybe you arent getting how i mounted these on corrrect. they are not just sticking off of the frame with a bolt holding them down. a larger hole was cut in the front and as you can see in the pic. that whole beveled part goes inside the frame to the backside of frame. i then drilled hole just big enough for bolt to mount through in the backside of the frame. therefore, the bike has just as much reinforcement if not more than the other bikes.

its still going to damage the frame no matter how you do it. your just going to lessen the damage when spreading it out, the more times its impacted the more the damage. that force has to go somewhere and being bolted to the frame thats where its going. the impact doesnt just magically dissipate through that slider.

also just having a larger area backing the slider isnt a sure solution. that slider isnt hitting the ground perfectly square against the frame every time. the bit of an angle is still going to lessen the surface of impact on the frame and bend/stress it. im sure someone would draw a diagram showing that.

for me buying new plastics to fix cosmetic issues is a better solution than risking frame damage.

[tzortn]

Ford, did you still have to drill the frame? If that is the case yoou have created a weakspot, unless you ahve added reinforcement. I do like your design better than most bolt in sliders. With your design you cannot crush the frame member by overtightening because the base goes all the way through.

[The CyberPoet]

The frame square section where everyone is mounting these sliders (or slider brackets) is not particularly strong against torsional (twisting) loads, because Suzuki never engineered to it be (no need based on the fairing protection).

A slider that doesn't break away immediately will load that chunk of the frame up with a torsional load, rotating the frame beam, damaging it. Ford's solution (drilling through the frame) just makes the leverage even higher and weakens the square cross-section, making the odds of frame damages in a moderate to high-speed spill much much higher (if the slider doesn't give, at 15 mph with a bolt-through design, your frame could be toast).

I haven't seen Braunstein's sliders in a post-moving-accident scenario, so I restrict my comments on them (and hope they will indeed snap/bend/etc. as intended before the frame starts to torque at that spot).

On sport bikes (which have limited fairing coverage because of racing regulations say full fairings are a no-no), the sliders are normally located at engine mounting bolts and cross-sectional bracing, so impact forces are both cushioned (by the engine vibration dampers) and transfered into a much stronger location on the frame's design (just as our frames are much stronger close to the headstock than at the side of the engine cylinders).

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet