Cool

Now that little mod is way cooler than only having the forks re-valved, shimmed and sprung! WOW!! It looks like we are going back and forth on mods! So far I have the same setup as your ST3!

Hope to see you around the area for a ride or two!

Don

 

ST3 Suspension upgrades - Forks

Thanks for that write up and the pics Ducati23, #1) suspension upgrade on the top of my wish list, #1a) bump paying off loan to # 2 spot. dup!

 

Nice write up, makes me think about improvements even to my bike.

 

ST-3 Suspension upgrades Fork

If you worked for the factory, we would not have much to do!
I think that your bike is the way they should all be from the start.
How where the fairing fasteners? Mine were terrible on my ST-4(2002)
What I did was to take all of those little rubber things with nut inside them that seem to freeze up and just spin and spin when your trying to remove the plastic and throw then in the garbage!!! Next I took a two inch piece of thin flatstock and drill three holes in it. Two of the holes are for pop rivets and the center hole I brazed a 5mm nut to it. On the peice of fairing that had the rubber nut things I drilled two small holes for the rivets. You can use the stock screws and from the outside you can't tell the difference!!!! It took me almost a half of a day to do 16 of them but it was really worth the effort. I no longer worry about taking of the fairing anymore!!! A little grease on the threads helps also.

 

Awaking this thread from afar.

Care to say how much this service costs?

 

I thought I might respond to this old thread and thank Ducati23 for originally sharing his suspension experience.

With the nuggets of information he left in his posts I was able to duplicate the fork modification using a pair of 2000 748 forks as donors and now have fully adjustable suspension on my 2004 ST3.

A few notes are worth mentioning. If you too are looking for donor forks, be aware that in addition to 948 forks, the 748 forks will work too but you do not want forks from an earlier 748 model as they are not fully adjustable. I am not sure of the exact cut off year but do know that 2000 and newer do have fully adjustable forks and a 748S will have a TiN coating.. One nice benefit of the donor forks is that they will also provide you the stiffer springs to replace the soft touring springs of the ST3 standard.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area or if you want to ship them your forks, I found that Jim Lindemann at LE Suspension was a pleasure to deal with and they had no hesitancy performing the swap. They can also valve your forks while they have them. He's a real Pro and the work was first rate. http://www.le-suspension.com/

I chose the Penske 3-way for the rear and added the height adjustable swing arm tie rod also. Since I was in pretty deep at that point, I decided to also pay the modest fee and have LE Suspension do an in person suspension setup. The experience that guy brings makes the fee a bargain.

Naturally the motorcycle's feel is utterly transformed for the better. One nice side benefit that I had not anticipated is that the ST3's annoying fork dive when easing off the throttle is now gone. That alone is almost worth since it drove me nuts no matter how smooth I was with her. Good luck with yours, its worth every penny.

 

Found this old post while searching around to do the same thing - upgrade the forks on my ST3.

Anybody else carried out this mod? and have any details of what internals need to be changed when using the ST outers with 9** internals/lowers?

Had toyed with the idea of getting a set of ohlins from a 9** or even an Aprilia rsvr but this maybe a more cost effective route.

Cheers

 

ST3 Front end upgrade




Jon - As an advance on a PM, here is a link to the thread containing my post on what I had done to my bike:
http://www.ducati.ms/forums/showthread.php?t=72112

There's an error in the body of my post - I used 996 forks, not 998 forks as stated, although they are probably identical (?).

Being closer to Nth America than I am, suggest you contact Cogent Dynamics ('NCRick' on this forum) for quality advice re all options. My solution was expensive in that I bought forks from the US and shipping is expensive, then I went to a local specialist for disassembly and re-assembly and other things.

cheers,

Dave

 

History
I

What Fits What? - Monster/748/749/998/999
Over at the Ducati Monster List forum, there are quite a few threads detailing superbike fork swaps onto Monsters. This seemed like a reasonable and direct approach if it could be applied to my ST3. This would achieve the goal of adjustable forks, and even if the internals would need to be replaced, it seemed a better overall investment.

It turns out that Ducati (in it's infinite wisdom), decided that forks on some models needed to be different lengths. They also specified that different bottom and top diameters be used (54/53/50mm). They even decided that brake caliper spacing and offsets should be different as well as fender mounting brackets on model to model and year to year, just to keep us on our toes....

Why not simply buy an ST4s forks? Everything will fit and you'll have the same profits as any other Ducati forks will provide.
Is the availability of ST4s forks that bad or what?

Nevertheless, the way you chose will be much more challenging, but at least also a lot less convenient.
Thanks anyway for the update. If necessary I'll find my way to a bigger market on offer now.

 

Why not simply buy an ST4s forks? Everything will fit and you'll have the same profits as any other Ducati forks will provide.
Is the availability of ST4s forks that bad or what?

That was my first thought as well. Do the ST4s forks and front suspension not have all the adjustability that the OP wanted?

 

The ST3s also has Tin treatment on the fork legs - I agree that these forks are hard to come by as just went through the process a few months back but fortunately a local lunched their engine and decided to part out the bike rather than pay for the re-build - Thankfully his loss was my gain - for £ 300 so was very pleased.

 

... a local lunched their engine and decided to part out the bike rather than pay for the re-build...

Was that a Desmotre? If so, did the owner tell you what happened to the engine?

 

Different ST forks and you still need the springs! ST's are to soft.

 

As some of the previous posts have said, if I could pick up a nice set of ST*S forks (and a ohlins shock) then problem solved but unless you are very lucky there is not many about in breakers (at least on this side of the pond).

Plan to carry out this work over the winter as both the front forks and rear shock are well overdue a strip down and service. Have managed to pick up a 2nd hand alloy 2003 M900 swingarm to fit when changing/upgrading the shock (have not decided whether to go down the ohlins route or just upgrade the stock shock with a heavier spring/improved internals (anybody tried this with any success?)).

Dave,

Thanks for the info, would probably be using my local Ohlins man to do the job as he knows his stuff (PLRS in Carrowdore, he did an excellent job of refurbing my old ohlins on my 888) and really need some background on what needs to be changed/swapped about before I go down this route.

There seems to be quite a lot of sbk forks around in the UK at the moment and well priced, it would be nice to pick up the later 996/8 gold forks although I have already been offered a set of 748sps ones for £200!

Cheers

Jonathan

 

I know I'll catch hell for this, but it works ok for me.

An old racer friend of mine helped me with my preload when I first got my ST3.

He machined a spacer for the shock and installed spacers in the forks. Result is no more nose dive upon breaking, no more mushy feeling and wallowing in corners. Still not as good as it could be, but much improved.

On my short list when I can afford it, is to have Cogent Dynamics rebuild my forks and upgrade the shock with the Penske or Olins.

 

Stiffer springs is the way to go, but you know that.

I remember when I had my FJR, that many riders felt the shock was too weak. Some bought an Ohlins (or Wilburs) upgrade, and others simply some added a spacer/washer to increase pre-load, which seemed to work as good as the Ohlins upgrade according to those riders who did both. I thought that was odd. Must have been a very long spring.

 

If you grind the short end of the Allen wrench to about 2/3 of the original length, you won't need to remove any plastic to get the fork tubes out of the triple clamps!

 

Just a warning for anyone considering doing this (998 lower tubes and internals mated to ST3 outer tubes), the resultant forks are about 10mm shorter than stock forks.

I just had the same done to mine and the bike turns in a lot easier. Stability has decreased, but not too much.

 

FWIW I did this mod having GP Suspension performing the surgery and the results are fantastic. The write up on this forum was extremely well written so that plain folk like myself could just follow a step-by-step plan. I had already installed an adjustable ride height..... adjuster..... and turned it so that about 7mm was taken out of the ride height. I adjusted the ride height using the ride height adjuster IOW. I wanted the steering slightly quicker while giving up a tiny amount of stability. Did I notice anything different. Well, no, but the ride was excellent thanks to the new forks. The rest of it, steering and stability is theoretical and may be noticed on a track day perhaps but certainly not day to day riding.

Go ahead and do the hybrid fork mod. You will be happy with the results. The GP work is about $650 plus the shipping. All told you will have about $8-900 invested depending on how much the donor forks cost. Mine were $100 plus shipping (a great price, really as I have seen some fork pairs listed for $250-300)

Good luck.

 

When you guys are doing this, which spec do you use for fork oil? I have a set of 996 forks...didn't realize I could do this! This is exciting news

 

I sent GP my OEM 2004 ST3 pre-load only adjustment forks and a donor fork pair (996). A total of two pairs of forks. They matched the 996 lowers and using their GP custom valve as well as the top adjuster parts from the donor to create a hybrid pair of fully adjustable forks. The compression adjustment is gained from the 996 lowers and the pre-load (unchanged) and rebound is gained from moving the cap from the donor fork and marrying it into their valving and then into the donor fork cap. Their website shows a general picture of their GP valve that they will be using. I cannot say enough good things about the whole of the mod and GP Suspension themselves. Top notch work.

I did not ask for any of the other parts back but theoretically you could end up with another whole pair of forks that would not fit anything. I just didn't need any of the extra bits so they disposed of them or scrapped them or gave them away. Probably recycled them is my guess.

There is a two or three year old thread in this section that describes the procedure in detail and it includes a very good ride review of the before and after.

 

Oops. .95 springs were chosen because of my selected riding weight and style. GP Suspension (Dave I think) will work with you to set it all up depending upon all of your preferences, of course.

 

Oops. Yes then I was off to the races!

 

Hey MazDuc go to page 1 of this thread and you will find the thread I mentioned that describes the step-by-step how to hybrid your forks with some 998 donor forks. Right in this very thread. Imagine that. I sure did not have to look far to find it.

 

Ok! It looks like I may be really close to solving my fork deal...

After looking for ST4S forks, finding them for $600, I thought it was too expensive. I was told you should have bought them. I did loose out on them.

Next was to find a pair of 748, 996 or 998 Ni Trid or non treated have them mated to my ST3 uppers. I found that it would be anywhere from $200 to about $600 for forks, about $300 for mating the forks, all said and done $1300 or so.

Next, find someone to work my stock forks, starting at about $400 up to $1500 plus.

It looks like Catalyst Reaction will rebuild the stock forks with a GP cartridge, it is more money that I want to spend but they told me it would be like putting a band-aid on it spending $700 for a re valve & new springs. Go for the big money if you are keeping the bike.