I'm about finished with my Supermoto build. It's a 2013 YZ450F. I've read about some guys running rains on the front. I'm looking at the Dunlop KR189. Anyone with experience have advice on this?
I ran my Bridgestone slick takeoffs from my sv on my supermoto for Kart tracks. I had to drop pressure to about 20psi before I got any grip out of them tho.
Metzler makes sumo slicks that work beautifully on these machines in dry or damp conditions, clean pavement or straight up dirt. If it's raining, then mount rains otherwise if you're on mostly pavement you'll kill them in short order.
It'll be for asphalt only, no dirt. Going to race it with WERA. I guess that they may be running the rains on a traditional supermoto track of asphalt/dirt for the grip in the dirt? I've got a trackday coming up that I'm going to try a rain front and a slick front. I've got Dunlop Q3+ on front and rear now. The rear is fine I think. I'm just worried about the front because the front end is so light.
Clean asphalt? Skip the rain. The few times I've seen sumos running rain fronts in the dry has been on tracks where the pavement is REALLY dirty. On the front being 'light' make sure you're sitting forward enough on the bike, it's real easy to get lazy and slide back in the seat.
The limited experience that I had racing SM (two+ years) is that the bike is light so you go to a softer compound tire. However, with 17's the front is much lower and therefore more bias toward the front than when running the 21" front wheel, so it mostly evened out (2002 YZ426 SM). I ran Bridgestone SM specific slicks, but it was explained to me that the SM slicks were labeled one step harder than road race slicks. Ergo, a medium SM slick is the same compound as a soft road race slick (but maybe different carcass?). Once I burned through the SM slicks I just put whatever 120/160 combo I had floating around and didn't really notice a difference (slow with SM tires and slow with road race tires).
That's the other thing that I'm going to have to figure out is seating position. Unlike a sportbike, where you can lean on the tank to weight the front, the MX seat is 3' long and flat with no real reference points by the feel of your butt.
Did you raise the forks up through the triples at all? I bought some bar risers so that I can play with the fork height some. I know that on my ZX6 I had it set up pretty low in the front and loved it. I'm just not sure if it'll translate over to a MX chassis as far as turn in.
Supermoto specific tires are the way to go. They heat up quicker and keep heat in them longer than regular road race tires for bigger bikes. Can roadrace tires be used? Yes they can but if you can I would use sumo tires. What size front rim are you using? 16, 16.5 or 17? Don't use a rain tire if its dry. totally useless on clean road race pavement.
A 17" x 3.25". I've noticed that there are a lot of 16 and 16.5 tire options out there. Dunlop offers this SM slick: https://www.dunlopracing.com/product/supermoto/ Looking at those, what about the KR448 in the soft compound?
I raised the forks on principle, but I don't know if I would have noticed a difference. I used the OEM springs as it was a trail/flat track/MX/Enduro bike as well, so it did everything poorly. There was a fair bit of dive on the brakes, so raising the forks 5mm was a gnat's whisker of difference. Regarding body position, you can tell pretty easy where you are on the bike in relation to the bars and pegs. Most of the weight will go on the pegs, except when turning and you will slide up onto the gas cap to let the back wheel come around while forcing the bars and front wheel to do funny thing. Don't over think it as you will find out pretty quick what does and doesn't work.
Mostly in the southeast. Tally, Barber and maybe Road Atlanta but not sure about the back straight. Going to the Corvette track in Bowling Green, KY in a few weeks. That'll be the first time to have it on a track. I haven't really touched the suspension yet other than putting some new dog bones on the rear to lower it a little and raised the forks up in the triples to try to level it out some. With the stock bar mounts, you can only go a .5". I have risers coming to allow me to play with a the fork height some. Going to rebuild the forks with stock internals for now, just to freshen them up and get a baseline. It's a 13 YZ450F. Any recommendations are welcomed!
Well the other Metzeler does make great Supermoto tires and they're readily available. With 5 back to back AMA Open Pro SM championships with Gage McAllister I think you will find they work well. Attached is the tire specs/sizes and you can get them from any Pirelli race tire vendor. Supermoto tires use a much different carcass construction and compounds because the intended use is so much different than roadracing. https://www.metzeler.com/en-us/products/tires/racetec-sm#gallery-2
I have three sets of brand new Dunlop Supermoto slicks from last season, extra soft, if you are interested. I could also groove them for you.
It is a motoamerica tire, but not sure if the superbikes run them or not. I know Parrish has run it on his SV.