So I'm guessing I should just deal with the flexible rear until I can afford a sp2 front next season

You meant SP2 rear ;)
BTW this set up will not effect your ability to wheelie :) despite the added weight on the front, by changing to CBR1000RR front you already loosing weight from the front end.
Another thing Scottie, you are not a heavy guy, the G force you get on the turns is not enough to flex the arm ;) you already in advantage :) so no worries mate!

Sorry I meant sp2 rear

Good advice Ruv, I wish we had a chance to ride after you got your cbr front all set up

Yea... I know, I guess we will get to compare the two when you done rebuilding... I got to tell you though, that front end mod worth every penny spent!!!

it better be... i still need rotors and pads

Anybody know what wheels and tires are pictured? Sent PM but never heard back.

Tires are Metzeler Sportec M1
Wheels look like Carrozzeria

Weight bias isn't really much of an issue here. The VTR isn't terrible in that department, and in fact can use a bit more reward weight bias and it would be just fine. Changing the wheelbase, on the other hand, is something that makes a noticeable impact on the overall handling. In this case shorter would be going in the good direction, longer is the bad direction. There are some negatives to having too short a swingarm so a limit exists on how far you want to go there. Plus it's kind of hard to find a shorter swingarm anyway!

Please don't confuse front ends with the swingarm discussion here. That's opening up another level of complexity. A fork change will not significantly decrease the wheelbase, in fact it's just about 6mm or so max if everything is setup properly. Not sure where the numbers came from that are thrown around in the above posts. Up front the biggest thing, IMO, to be concerned about is rake and triple clamp offset and it's effect on trail. The VTR's stock rake is just about right, so "dropping" the front reduces trail. The VTR's are alread on the boarderline of having not enough trail in stock trim. Swapping complete front ends usually changes the fork offet (the new triples) down to 30mm from the VTR's stock 36mm. In that case it is best to increase the front ride height by 5mm to get good trail numbers.

Food for thought!

Have been doing some planning, which included many searches on the subject, to educate myself for my future fork swap (SP1 forks, lower triple, stem, All Balls bearings and 954 upper triple).
Reducing offset adds trail. Right? In this case you're recommending to add more trail by lowering (raising ride height) the forks in the triples. Is this because the reduced offset doesn't add enough to get to where you like it? Or am I reading this wrong?

Don't forget, chassis geometry is a tricky thing. What happens in the front depends on what is going on out back. A good setup on the VTR will have about 20-25mm of increased ride height in the rear. That decreases the trail up front by about 6mm. The VTR already has only 100mm so that is going in the wrong direction. Switching to a front end with 30mm of triple clamp offset gains that back plus a bit, but that's not enough. In order to get into the desired range of 102-105mm of trail you would need to raise the front another 5-10mm. That nets you a couple mm of additional trail which helps.

Thank you. That clears it up a lot for me.
In addition to a shim in the rear to get most of the rear height increase, what about rest made up with a Dunlop 190x55 Q2 rear tire? By my calculations that tire size would net about 5.5mm in height. Which is a little different than what was posted by nath981. https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...ard-rim-28606/

Swing arm advice
 

HRCA#1; sorry for the delay to your PM but no PM received, but HSNS is correct on the wheel/tire combo in the 900rr brace pictures.

2whltuner

I'm really glad you brought this up - it's something often overlooked. Actual tire diameter will affect chassis geometry. If the bike is 100% stock it probably doesn't make a heap of difference, but if you have a suspension setup that you are happy with, changing to a different tire OD can certainly throw things off.

Thank you all
 

A great thread.
I have just started my VTR project and all the above has sent me on the path I needed to go down.
I will post its progress.

I am now chassing a front end and by what I have read 98 1000RR might be the go, the other option is a GSX1100R??????? anybody gone down that track?????.

Sorry I will look for that tread somewhere else.

Cheers