For those of you who are performance-enhanced (or maybe just your bikes?) and are into "all out" handling improvements...
I'm thinking of making and offering some bronze "end caps" for the swingarms. If you are familiar with these arms, the early versions of them have end caps on each end of the tube (Honda calls them a "bush") that sets the overall width of the tube and squeezes the grease felt washer inside to make a waterproof seal. (The later bikes had a one-piece flanged bushing that doesn't seal, but that's a different story: when I rebuild arms, I generally 'convert' to the earlier method for its superior waterproofing, longer life, increased stiffness, and lower cost, unless the owner has a different idea.)
These end caps are made of phenolic, which over time absorbs grease and moisture and becomes a little bit spongy. While not a huge deal for most riders, making some of SAE660 bronze instead would provide a long-wearing bearing surface that would add some stiffness in hard corners for the cafe' rider or heavy touring loads.
Setup of this arm arrangement would require a torque wrench on the big bolt, because overtorquing could lock the arm in place at first. Once the end caps are burnished in, a second retorque (loosen, then retorque) would be needed to ensure the final setup. This would probably be after about 500 miles of riding, following the initial installation. The second operation should be done with the shocks removed so the rider can "feel" when it is too tight, as if the bushing faces had not yet polished.
In other words, it's gonna be a little fussy to set up at first, but will probably only be done once in the bike's lifetime.
But, it would make a nice addition to those full-wrap or trigonometric tires on the high-speed sweepers: it will essentially be adding a 3rd and 4th bearing surface to the 2-bearing swingarm assembly: many modern sportbikes use a similar arrangement (4 bearings) to maintain the arm's alignment. The rest of the frame parts are up to this task, stock.
Please respond bck, if there's any interest? I estimate it will cost around $25 for a pair of these end caps.
