I have my first track day at road Atlanta coming up and was wondering what to look out for on the FZ09 at the track? My bike has sliders and will be on q3's other than that it's fully stock.
if it has the little knobby things on the bottom of the foot pegs id take those off for better clearance and run your tire pressures at 28 front and 26 rear and set them before each session, cant really just set them and leave them cause they will change as the outside temp changes .. other than that go over the bike and make sure theres no loose bolts, tape the lights and signals with blue painters tape and have fun.. good luck
I've owned one (for the street riding) since October 2013. The stock suspension is, let's say, less than adequate unless you are in the 140 to maybe 160 lb range, and it still doesn't have much in the way of adjustment. The brakes are pretty good in stock form, although not really up to track standards unless you are in the Novice group. The ECU has a built in speed limiter and the most you are going to see out of it is approx. 131-132 MPH....wide open in 6th gear. You'll actually feel it kick in when you are in 5th gear (you can't make it to redline) and then even more so in 6th. There is obviously no wind protection, so that may be an issue for you...maybe not. Ground clearance at lean angle are certainly less than most sport bikes, so that is something to watch out for. The 2014 model came out with a pretty twitchy/abrupt throttle, which some somewhat resolved with the Yamaha factory reflash of the ECU. I'm not sure what year your FZ is, but if it's a '14 and hasn't had the reflash, you are most likely aware of the throttle/fueling issue. The '15s and '16s came with the updated ECU mapping, so not nearly as much issue with them. Two of the most glaring issues with the suspension is this. 1. Excessive front end dive on medium to hard braking, which of course will cause some handling issues if you are not super smooth on and off the brakes on the front. 2. The rear end lacks sufficient damping for the shock and it's pretty soft....thus easy to cause a lot of rear end squat on throttle roll on. None of this probably what you wanted to hear, but the good news is that the suspension can be sorted out fairly cheaply, depending on how you want to approach it.......or even IF you want to do something to it. Good luck and enjoy your first day at Road Atlanta.....just keep the shortcomings in mind and ride accordingly.
Thank you for the info. I am 160ish with gear and ride pretty aggressively in the mountains, and so far I have found the forks to work fine but the rear shock not so much. The bike is a '16 and still on stock suspension until funds permit. The bike can get squirmy at times mid corner, I might try a bit more preload in the rear. A reflash to remove the limiter is also in the future plans. I will definitely keep the shortcomings in mind, I had a friend highside last weekend coming out of turn 7 at road atlanta. The track is scary in a car but I've never been around on a bike I'm sure it's also scary haha.
I didn't think of taking the knobbies off of the pegs, will do. About the tire pressures, that seems low given the excessive heat we are in. I was thinking 30f30r to start with and go from there. But I'm new to the track scene so if it suggested to go lower I will try it.
q3's have the carbon fiber sidewalls and i have always run those pressures no matter the temp, plus dave moss the suspension genius even said to run lower pressures in them, pressures in race tires are alot more tempermental than street tires .. i ride and race my ninja 650 on q3s and run them at those pressures .. to each their own but it works for me
If you're talking about going this coming up weekend, I'll see you there. I bought StoltecMoto's FZ09 a few weeks ago and took it to Barber. Come on by and check out all the mods he did, it will give you plenty of ideas. He built this thing for the track. I'll be at RA for Sunday only. Probably have my huge blue canopy up.
GP Suspension 25mm cartridge kit for the front and Penske 8987 Triple Clicker for the rear. Nick did a base tune for my weight plus gear for mostly track. A little rough on the street with current settings, but super stable on the track. Front Suspension Rear Suspension
Nick is the man when it come to suspension tuning on the FZ09. He did my front forks and I sourced my Penske 8983 double clicker through him when I bought the bike back in 2013.
You're telling me you have the triple clicker penske and the gp forks plus the all the fancy ecu tuning they did!!! I love my FZ I could not even imagine how good that bike is! Unfortunately I will only be on track saturday but I live 10 mins from RA so i might drop by and check it out sunday. I really want to see that bike!
Hopefully I didn't miss you if you tried to stop by Sunday. I was next to the huge semi-truck with the KTM team. It blocked the sun for the first half of the day so that was nice. Never seen such a professional setup at a trackday like that. Anyways, maybe I'll catch you at the next one. Are you in Novice Group?
That's where I was the day before haha. The kid on the Ktm looked like he was 16 and a pro....I have a long way to go haha. But no I unfortunately didn't get time to come out there, I really wanted to stop by though. I had a blast Saturday on the FZ so it's all good. I will be going to barber sep 4th maybe I'll see you there? I am in the novice group. Hopefully by then I will get the stoltec gp valve kit and a zx6rr shock installed.