My understanding is that you can change the head angle on a 996S. Pretty sure mine is in the lazier angle at the moment from looking at the bike. How big a job is it to change this? What does it involve to move it back to a sharper angle? Thanks!
glad i'm not alone re; memory - another consideration as these bikes have been around a while now, is that the whole swivelling section has not become stuck-up with corrosion, fingers crossed. being lazy as about to go to bed:- https://www.ducati.ms/threads/2005-999r-steering-head-angle-how-to-identify-current-position.369817/
They do get stuck and the alloy is very soft so damages easily. Different head angle was supposed to be used with the long race swingarm
always set mine steeper, as never left them where steering lock was needed, I think many on here have/did.
I'm not sure that this is entirely correct. I'm pretty sure the original 916 debuted with an adjustable steering head and the long race swing arm was a development from the race team mid way through the '94 season. The steeper steering angle may work better with the long swing arm, but it wasn't incorporated as part of the original 916 chassis in order to be used with a long swing arm as that hadn't yet been developed
Ran mine on the steeper angle for a while on the road and track until I decided I didn't like the behaviour under heavy trail braking so put it back to normal. After fitting a long swingarm it went back to the steeper angle and has nice handling. Anyway it's easy enough to try and if you don't get on with it, it's easy enough to put back. Just don't use a screwdriver/chisel to get it moving
Benefits of the real race bike to road bike design of these bikes: use the rear hub adjuster to lengthen the bike and add longer chain then the ride height adjuster to get back in the range it should be. Similar to a DSSA pushing it as far back as poss.
I ran both my 748 and 916 on the steeper head angle. Never had any problems apart from the one short test ride I did without the steering damper fitted. Crikey, I found out very quickly why they have a damper.
Using the steeper steering angle in isolation won't IMO, achieve that and although I've never ridden a BMW S1000RR, I'd venture to suggest, fitting a longer swing arm, raising the rear ride height and fitting off set triple clamps that completes the geometry set up on the 996, won't either. Enjoy the 996 for what it is, not compared to something that it will never be Andy
Yes I completely agree. It’s a classic bike and it will ride like a classic bike. I was being a bit glib. I’ve got classic cars too and the pleasure comes from the idiosyncrasies not from the objective ‘goodness’ of handling or whatever. I like quick steering bikes though, and if this is an easy tweak then it’s worth trying it out.
its very naive to look at one change in isolation... Ducatis of that era had a very low number of trail... ie front end feel! In the std set up 24.5 you get 96mm of trail. If you solely change to the 23.5 steering angle alone you lose 6mm of trail and it goes down to a dangerous 90mm. hence it should be changed in combination with the 30mm offset triples (from the 36mm std) re reinstating the still crap but ok 96mm of trail! If you don't understand or know what trail is then I would suggest researching it particularly when you combine the crap std number with the std swing arm and the percentage of swingarm of the whole wheelbase it provides. Incidentally compare it a R6.. then you see how crap the std numbers are. Most std bikes now sit at 24 degrees of steering angle. You could compromise with a parallel steering head insert to achieve this but you are still losing 3mm of trail. All or nothing.........
