Crash protectors/frame sliders

[crystalh]

Alright, so I saw the thread about the R&G crash protectors, but I didn't want to hijack it so I made this one!
If you read the thread mentioned above, you'll know that those crash protectors won't work on our carb'd models. I recently saw a site that looks like they sell something similar, called sato frame sliders (http://stores.sportbiketrackgear.com/Detail.bok?no=5218)
Now, this site doesn't say much about these frame sliders, but I found the link under their 250R section. On a visit to the sato racing website, they do not have these frame sliders listed under 250r. http://www.satoracing.com/frameslidertop.htm
And at the bottom of the page, they also say that they're no good for low speed and kickstand fall overs.

Before this, I was POSITIVE I was going to buy shoguns, and before that, I was sure I was going to buy intuitives. Now, I'm on the fence again. Should I still go with the shoguns?

[kkim]

Originally Posted by crystalh

Should I still go with the shoguns?

why are you doubting your shogun decision?

[crystalh]

I heard a lot of people saying good things about the R&G's, and saw that the Sato's were similar... is the most part is the reason for my second guessing the shoguns...

[kkim]

is there a significant price diff? you know the shouguns work reasonably well. do you have any idea how well the satos work? if not, are you going to wait to see how they work to decide?

frame sliders won't work unless they are installed. If you're going to debate for a period of time before deciding, your bike goes unprotected till then.

I personally don't see a need for sliders, but if you feel the need for them, I would think getting them on ASAP would be a priority.

[crystalh]

That is a lot of questions to be asking myself!
I don't feel the NEED to have frame sliders on, but I would feel tons safer with them on. Especially since everyone has said "you WILL crash". So, if it's as inevitable as they make it sound, why not protect the bike since I'm going to be all padded up?

[kkim]

if you feel that way, then I would suggest buying the shoguns unless the satos are significantly cheaper. you already know the shoguns work in a crash... what more do you want?

[girlygirl69]

hey crystal, do you care if the body work is cut or do you like that it fits with no alterations? Im looking for some too but most people dont want to cut the body work... really does it matter?

[BlueRaven]

All the frame sliders that i have seen for the ninjette are no cut sliders so u won't have to worry about cutting in your bodywork

[xpander37]

Originally Posted by BlueRaven

All the frame sliders that i have seen for the ninjette are no cut sliders so u won't have to worry about cutting in your bodywork

shoguns isnt entirely no-cut.... although the bodywork isnt cut into.... there is a small notch that is needed to be cut out of the sprocket cover to be installed... but from the way these sato sliders look, i dont think there will be a cut needed in the sprocket cover=)

[Duvivr6]

I have the Shogun Crash kit installed on mine body, rear arm and handlebar sliders and it looks awesome! dont know how they work and i really dont wanna find out :P

[BlueRaven]

hi duvivr6 and

[BlueRaven]

they hit the ground first so it's not supposed to touch your bodywork

[Duvivr6]

Originally Posted by BlueRaven

they hit the ground first so it's not supposed to touch your bodywork

thats basically the purpose but i prefer for it to not hit the ground

[BlueRaven]

i wasn't so lucky. i wanted to wait till i put a crash kit and a lowering kit before i rode my bike but it dropped 5 min after it was delivered when i was trying to move it.

[Banzai]

Originally Posted by Duvivr6

thats basically the purpose but i prefer for it to not hit the ground

Actually, as originally designed and used, frame sliders were to protect the one off hard parts that stick out beyond the protection of the frame on high end race bikes.

Fairings are a dime a dozen and relatively cheap compared to speciality magnesium and carbon hard parts that the race teams used. They were hard mounted to frames and made of (and here's the key part that bling bling street parts miss entirely) a soft enough material that when they hit the ground, they give enough to absorb the impact and they proceed to abrade away as sacraficial parts. In the event that the slide is nearly catastrophic, you WANT the slider to snap off, to prevent the bike from flipping. A repairable side slide is preferable to a flipped bike that gets totaled from a tweaked frame/fork/swing arm caused by the slider not breaking off and pogo-ing the bike. The point between a slide that the sliders help save things and a catastrophic slide where you want them to break off is a relatively narrow margin, but still, it's something to understand about the how and why in the application and performance of frame sliders when choosing a product to install on YOUR bike.

That said, for our 250s, the geometry of our bikes pretty much dictates that everything that's valuable is inside the triangle of the frame rail and where the suspension will hit the ground on a slide and we really don't have a GOOD frame point to mount to. Everything is relatively protected, that is, EXCEPT our fairings, which makes frame sliders for our '08+ 250s more like FAIRING SLIDERS.

The real key to deciding which to buy is what do you really expect them to do for you?

Let me say this first: ANY frame slider puck that is not made of delrin or some other soft yet resiliant plastic is pure street bling bling crap, and will cause more damage in a real crash (other than a simple tip over) than not having sliders on in the first place. Aluminum ones are the ones that routinely catch on some piece of the pavement and flip the bike instead of snapping off altogether. Further, the carbon ones shatter, usually on initial contact, and carbon fiber weave, no matter what epoxy matrix it's in, HAS NO ABRASION RESISTANCE, so it just desintigrates (ever seen a modern F1 or Indy car even BUMP the wall, even at low speed? Shower of carbon fibers!)

Type one: Frame sliders that attach to dog ear brackets to the upper engine mount bolt. (Intuitive and other similar types)
Pros: Cheap to manufacture. Easy to install. Easy to understand and requires only basic hand tools to install. Takes little time to install. Will survive well for a simple tip over. True fairing/frame "No cut". Will protect fairings unless it slips/bends.
Cons: Relatively weak dog ear brackets prone to bending, even in simple tip over. Tabs often bend and cause head/engine case damage in serious high/low side fall at speed. Often hard to keep the brackets aligned when torquing mount bolts. Extended pucks offer long leverage arm that often bends bracket even in moderate tip overs. Because of long arm and strong mount bolt, does not break off in catastrophic crash, causing more damage.

Type two: Frame sliders that attach to bars that mount on the upper engine mount bolt and a lower point on the engine. (Sato)
Pros: Strong mounting point that will always be correctly positioned. Will survive well from simple tip over to moderate crash. Moderate relative installation difficulty. True fairing/frame "No cut". Shorter pucks that offer less of a leverage arm than type ones. More likely to break off in catastrophic crash, but because mounting brackets are often aluminum in this type, causes unfixable tweaks and/or cracks to mount brackets/hardware/extenders.
Cons: Mounts to points on mid engine case. Requires adapters and extended bolts/sleeves to mate to engine case. Has the potential to cause extensive engine case damage in a serious high/low side fall at speed.

Type three: Frame sliders that attach to bars that mount on the upper engine mount bolt and a transmission/engine mount bolt. (Shogun)
Pros: Strong mounting point that will always be correctly positioned. Two point support on frame mount components. Creates a structurally reinforced crash bar that ONLY bears on the frame. Will survive (as has already been proven) a tip over to full on low/high side impact at speed. Shorter pucks that offer less of a leverage arm than type ones. Has been shown to break off when necessary, and easily repaired by rebending mounting bracket on crash bar and replacing puck.
Cons: Expensive to manufacture. Relatively difficult to install. Requires more support tools than type one or type two. Not a true NO CUT (requires that sprocket cover be notched to clear lower mount point) but fairing remains no cut (incidently, taking some care with a dremel 60 grit sanding drum instead of cutting a chunk out of the cover will lead to a "factory" look to your install, and takes some care, but no more time to do correctly than proper careful cutting of the chunk as suggested. I used a total of 4 drum covers to do the entire notch with enough clearance to slide a playing card between the bar and the cover).

So, what do you want your frame sliders to do? Remember, you often get EXACTALLY what you pay for. Sometimes less, rarely more. Type ones will surely protect your fairings under light impact, but little else. Type twos will also protect your fairings, but you may sacrafice your engine case in a moderate impact. Type threes have been shown to protect BOTH your engine and fairings even at moderate to high impacts and speed slides. I believe that ANYTHING that totals a type two or three (edit: or type four, see below) mount will total your bike.

That said, I have Shoguns on my bike. With a floor jack, sockets, and a torque wrench they took all of an hour to install from first fairing mount screw removal to last fairing bolt back installed and ready to ride. I'd rather sacrafice $1000 worth of my fairings and ride a street fighter look until I got replacements rather than have a clean, nice looking bike that has holes in the engine case that keeps me from riding permanently.

As a technical note, make sure that your engine mount bolts (upper and lower) that you replace and/or retorque are as free floating as you can get them on installation. A little binding is expected, and somewhat normal, but if you had to force them in and then torqued them with the weight of the engine on them, be aware that you MAY NOT have gotten proper torque on the bolt, ESPECIALLY with the Shogun kit. With the full weight of the engine assembly on the bolt before torquing, sometimes the bolt won't strech properly, and subesquent road vibration and heat/cold cycles will allow the whole assembly to settle and equalize the load on the bolt. Retorquing will often reveal that the nut will turn somewhat, indicating that it was not torqued properly initially. This is very common in the Shogun kit, as the replacement upper engine mount bolt is assembled from threaded rod that has a nut welded onto one end to form the 'bolt head'. The threaded rod is of a (sufficient) but lower grade than the factory bolt, and stretches more on initial torque. Oh, and you might want to put a spot of black paint on the thing, too, to prevent corrosion, if you're given to care about things like that. About 6 inches of the bolt is exposed at the front of the engine case, and will get all of the road water and dirt on it that your front tire kicks up. Touch up black on the bolt head and nut will ensure that you won't have to worry much about rusted tight components should you ever need to remove them later in life.

At the end of the day, no matter what you choose (unless you're putting them on for pure cosmetics), it's an insurnace policy in the form of a hard part. Like all insurnace policies, the best ones are the ones that you NEVER have to test firsthand!!!

(How's that for a first post )

EDIT TO ADD:

The R&Gs mounting bracket replaces the upper engine mount dog ears with a HUGE piece of metal. I guess we could call those a type four. By far, they require the most extensive dissasembly of the bike, may only work on FI bikes due to possible interferance issues (unconfirmed), and they're expensive, too. Although they look substantial, and surely would take some hard punishment, I would like to see how they survive a crash before making any more observations. I think that anything that would tweak the bracket enough to rip the slider but not total the bike would probably transmit back into the frame rail in a negative manner, possibly tweaking the frame in a manner that less substantial mounting methods would not. There is such a thing as "Too tough" when making a frame slider. (The one, twos, and threes are all old designs newly adapted to the new 250, and I based my observations on both the new 250 crashes as posted all over the web in pictures, previous incarnations of those mount types on other bikes and crash results, and some first hand experience).

[RaceBikeRentals]

Nice work!

[Banzai]

Originally Posted by RaceBikeRentals

Nice work!

Thanks.

[Alex]

Phenomenal post! Great info.

[Duvivr6]

Originally Posted by Banzai

Thanks.

Indeed, great info!

I had my shoguns installed at the dealer when i bought the bike.

My main reason was cause my wife wants to learn how to ride so I just wanted to have some sense of protection for the fairings.

[Momaru]

Originally Posted by Banzai

(Shogun)
Not a true NO CUT (requires that sprocket cover be notched to clear lower mount point) but fairing remains no cut (incidently, taking some care with a dremel 60 grit sanding drum instead of cutting a chunk out of the cover will lead to a "factory" look to your install, and takes some care, but no more time to do correctly than proper careful cutting of the chunk as suggested. I used a total of 4 drum covers to do the entire notch with enough clearance to slide a playing card between the bar and the cover).

Since I've only seen one pic of this but thought it sounded hella better than removing (essentially) the whole top plate of the countershaft cover, I decided to give it a go via dremel sanding. About 20 cycles of 'grind-check fit-grind' and 30min later, this is what I wound up with:

DSC04703.jpg
DSC04704.jpg
DSC04706.jpg

I cut a little too much off the side closest to the inside of the bike than I would've liked but this gives me some leeway getting the holder pin on the cover into place when re-installing it. If you choose to go this route, I strongly suggest putting a layer of masking tape over the section of the slider bar you're fitting, to prevent scraping it up like I did.

[Sailariel]

Originally Posted by crystalh

That is a lot of questions to be asking myself!
I don't feel the NEED to have frame sliders on, but I would feel tons safer with them on. Especially since everyone has said "you WILL crash". So, if it's as inevitable as they make it sound, why not protect the bike since I'm going to be all padded up?

Crystahl, I have a real problem with "Everybody will crash". If you take the time to take MSF courses, maybe attend a sportbike riding school, read some good books on MC riding---I like Code`s book, etc.---there is no need to subscribe to this self fulfilling prophecy. Having the proper equipment--ATGATT, and excercising good sense---such as knowing your limitations and riding accordingly (Motorcycling is a constant learning experience) is your best insurance against a crash. I have not crashed in the 50 years that I have been riding.

[eddiekay]

I crashed several times. A high speed slide left me with a pin in my leg and about $100 to fix the bike. A fast high side left me with about $300 in bills for plastic and bars that I couldn't fix. Had no sliders on the slide crash...the engine was not touched,had them on the high side and the brake pedal dented...not penetrated, the clutch cover ?
Sliders mos' def look cool but whether they work is very subjective and i have never seen a sport bike fall without a lot of damage to lowers.

[ninja250]

Nice cut Paul.
You always gotta take some paint off somewhere. That's what the sharpie markers are for.

I pondered painting that cover red with brake caliper paint to match my bike (since I took some original paint off when I modded the piece for the shogun sliders) but don't want to have to go buy a new one when I mess it up.

[Samer]

Originally Posted by Sailariel

Crystahl, I have a real problem with "Everybody will crash". If you take the time to take MSF courses, maybe attend a sportbike riding school, read some good books on MC riding---I like Code`s book, etc.---there is no need to subscribe to this self fulfilling prophecy. Having the proper equipment--ATGATT, and excercising good sense---such as knowing your limitations and riding accordingly (Motorcycling is a constant learning experience) is your best insurance against a crash. I have not crashed in the 50 years that I have been riding.

Congrats on staying safe and enjoying the ride for so long.

I also have a problem with this inevitability of crashing attitude. I propose we treat the "there are two types of riders" thing like the "loud pipes save lives" slogan. An outdated untrue thought. First of all, it is obviously not true. Do people LITERALLY believe that nobody has ridden a bike for their entire life without crashing? That reminds me of other unbelievable quotes like the president of Iran saying that there are no gay people in Iran. He was speaking at a U.S. university. The audience just laughed at him. Let's all ride safe, wear our gear all the time because we understand that there is a risk and we accept it. But we should always seek to minimize the risk.

I'll get off the box now.