140/80 R18 908RR on -09 FE 450

Just bought Dunlop 908 RR 140/80 R18 and noticed that it will not fit my 2009 FE450 without scratching the exhaust silencer (Akra slip-on which is quite slim). The interference is or would be if installed around 5mm. Anyone with similar findings? Measured the tyre width and it was 145mm. Current 140/80 size tyres are much slimmer (Metzeler Six Days ? not 100% certain on type but 100% certain on size ).

May have to try on putting some washers between the silencer and the bike frame if the pipe allows it, there is small gap between the silencer and number plate plastics that could be used.

seems to happen with most 140's, also used to do it on the old style bergs, just space out the silencer.

my metzler 6 days does the same until i spaced the silencer

The 908 is a very wide tire, as you found out. It is a tire designed for heavy rally bikes, and is made to run on wider rims. I would not run one on a stock Husaberg. There are much better tire choices available that fit properly. I have a 908 on my 950 Adventure, but I wouldn't consider one for my Husaberg.

if you really need to run it you could cut some off the side "knobs" I used to do that on my jap bikes, don't need to anymore the old berg swingarm can take big mutha rears

Johnf3, Could you recommend something? I was looking for something that has real knobs for good grip but wouldn't wear and tremble like MX-style tyres do on occasional on-road drives which I cannot avoid. The tyre pattern should handle all sorts of things, especially gravel roads, also occasional sand and soft sections too. Btw, is 908 RR's recommended rim width officially out of spec of -09 fe450 rims? Or is it just unsuitable. I'm no expert in these issues.

Dunlop recommends a 3.50 rim size for the rear 908. Here is the link to the official Dunlop site for the tire. If your rear rim is stock on your 450, it is only 2.15 inches wide, so you are pretty far off on the recommended width.

http://www.dunlopmotorcycle.com/tirecat ... .asp?id=96

There are many tires that would work, but anything that holds up really well to gravel and tarmac will be somewhat of a compromise in sand or mud. That being said, I am partial to Pirelli MT21's IF I have to run this type of tire. Their rear 120 size will be the same width as the Metzler 6 days that you had. The MT21's have wide, thick knobs that will not chunk and will hold up great to extended road use. They will not be great in deep sand or really muddy conditions. Dunlop 606's would be another choice.

I just run regular MX-style knobs all the time and deal with the accelerated wear when I am dual-sporting. I'll trade better hook up for faster wear, but that's just me.

My two cents..........

As mentioned by others in this thread, the tire you have now is too wide, good on ya for trying to get the best tire though.

IMHO even a 120/100 is too big for your 450 in Japanese measuring terms.

I used to run 120/100 pirrelli's MT 18's, ( now XCMH's) on my 550 and 570, big heavy tires, definitely run flat technology there!

I asked my friend Fritz what he runs up there in Colorado as they have lot's of sharp rocks like we do here in So Cal, he just doesn't have the sand. He recommended Bridgestone 403/404's. So now I am running a 110/100 in the rear, and the 90/100 in the front, with the heavy duty Bridgestone tubes that I have always run. These tires work awesome, way better ride, and the grip is phenomenal on the hard pack, rocks, and really good in the sand.

I ran them in a National Hare and Hound last October. The front held up really good, and so did the rear although it show a some wear and a few knobs chunked, but not bad for 100 miles of Lucerne Valley's finest and about 50 miles of that was all lava rock.

I have not found the slimmer 110/100 to be at any disadvantage at all when compared to a 120/100. In fact it seems to work superior in terms of handling and grip.

DaleEO said:

My two cents..........


I have not found the slimmer 110/100 to be at any disadvantage at all when compared to a 120/100. In fact it seems to work superior in terms of handling and grip.

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I run 110/100's too...however, the wider tire has bigger knobs that wear even better, and since the first poster said that he was concerned with wear and tear on road, that's why I mentioned them. Both tires I mentioned are also DOT legal tires as well. Again, I got the feeling he was looking for street legal tires.

Luv the Bridgestone 403/404 combo too. Hard to beat for off road hook up.

Thanks everyone. Street legal - yes. Tarmac grip is not that important, current full knobbies do it well enough as, much better than I expected. Bought the bike used and it came with good enduro tyres that are just wearing too fast in my use.
It just didn't cross my mind that the 140/80 908RR wouldn't be even close to fitting my rim. MT21 was a close runner-up in my charts, just happened to choose the dunlops. Have to check is there a fitting smaller D908RR or then just order the right sized MT's.

tumpelo said:

Thanks everyone. Street legal - yes. Tarmac grip is not that important, current full knobbies do it well enough as, much better than I expected. Bought the bike used and it came with good enduro tyres that are just wearing too fast in my use.
It just didn't cross my mind that the 140/80 908RR wouldn't be even close to fitting my rim. MT21 was a close runner-up in my charts, just happened to choose the dunlops. Have to check is there a fitting smaller D908RR or then just order the right sized MT's.

Click to expand...

Right on,

JohnF3: You are right, I digressed, thanks for getting it back on topic.

Tumpelo:

I think you will find that most of the MT series of Pirrelli tires are gone, and have been replaced with the "Scorpion" designation, with the exception of the 21, 60, and 90. You can check them all out here:

http://www.pirelli.com/tyre/ww/en/motor ... =off-road#

I ran the MT 18 Heavy Duty tires for years, and they were replaced with Scorpion XCMH designation. They are also DOT legal, and are extremely tough tires, super stiff sidewall, and great when used with the Bridgestone heavy duty tubes. As I mentioned before, this set up is great run flat technology. I have never run these tires a lot on asphalt for any great distance, but, they always wore really good for me.

I was reading the latest issue of Dirt Rider last night, and there was a section from the recent Indianapolis bike show, they showed a set of Kenda adventure tires with large block knobby's. Might be worth investigating. I have run Kenda tires in the past and they worked pretty good. Word has it that one of the main designers from Dunlop, left Dunlop some years ago and went to Kenda. Their tires work well, and are very competitively priced.

If you are doing a fair amount of asphalt work, a couple of suggestions, that you may have already done.

On the front: Move the rim lock to 180* opposite the valve core. The stock wheel comes with the rim lock about 45* away from the valve core, don't why they do this............. This will help balance the wheel naturally and keep from having to put on excessive weights in the next step.

Then get your wheel balanced, this will make a huge difference in how the bike rides on the asphalt, and will dramatically improve tire wear as a result. There are two types of wheel weights, the sticker backed lead weights, and spoke weights that are secured with a little set screw. The latter being the more durable, the stickie backed weights can come off with off road use.

All tires come with a little white dot on them that has some sort of code in it. This white dot is supposed to be mounted in line with the valve core. At least that is what I have been told. You will notice that any good tire shop will mount your tires this way, and most new cars come with their tires mounted this way. This white dot indicates the lightest part of the tire. I suppose in our case, this dot should go with the rim lock?

On the Rear:

I added another rim lock 180* opposite the single stock rim lock on both my 04 550 and my 09 570. The main reason for this is that it will keep the tire from spinning on the rim under hard acceleration, and help keep the tire on the rim if you get a flat. The bikes used to come with two rim locks, then a while back they just started coming with one. And again, get the wheel balanced for all the reasons I listed for the front.

Best of luck! Let us know how you make out in the end, by posting your results on the site!

Last week took the rim lock off from the front wheel just to see the difference, rode it last saturday around 120km 70-30 off and onroad. At 80-100 kmh on asphalt most of the big shake and shiver was gone, the difference was huge, also on gravel roads at higher speeds. Earlier the entire bike used to pump up and down at speeds over 60, seriously limiting driving. It didn't matter on mx-track and it could not be even noticed. Need to get those rim weights before putting the rim lock back.

If you really need the DOT stamp-
I have run the following in RallyMoto runs that checked for DOT stamps:
Michelin T63 - Think Deserts but lighter. A decent dirt oriented DOT
Michelin Baja- Not made any more and if you find one tell me where! Loved this tire on the 950 SE and ran them on a 525 desert sled. Great tire on the rear but makes mind numbing noise in transit sections. Very responsive to pressure changes.
Michelin Deserts- I like them but wish they had deeper rear lugs. Not recommended for lighter bikes. I have found the fronts tend to cup/wear kinda weird if they run on the street too long but are great in the dirt. It is one of my favorite DOT fronts
Pirelli- Never had any issues with any of the models (good hookup and wear) but I still have not decoded their new name setup (they will always be MT-XX's to me). For HS races I have been running pirellis with moose in the fronts for 4 years now and love them.
Dunlop... Not my favorite brand... 908RR was really disappointing. I found the rubber to be too hard for my taste. And the tread didn't hookup as well as I thought it should. Rear liked to skate thru the corners. Not very responsive to pressure (ran on the 950). Even after a few tries with the tire groover splitting the big center knobs it was just unimpressive and ended its life in a 2 mile rolling burnout.

In the rocks around here I've found that I like Dunlop 952s up back and 773s or BS 201s (both now superseded) up front. I've also had great runs with Mitas CO2s up back.

On my DR650 which I generally want DOT approved tyres on I've been very happy with a Mitas E07 up back and MT21 up front. I have recently tried a 606 on the front and am now on a Mitas E09 up front. I expect to do about 13,000 kms outback in June/July and the Mitas are the best kms/$ I've tried. I got over 7,000 kms out of the MT21/E07 combo. The E07 works OK everywhere, with its major limitation being sidee grip when its wet, bitumen, or dirt, but the best dual sport tyre I've found nevertheless.

Balance them, it make a difference. I recall years ago using an on vehicle balancer on my then Kwak GPZ1100 B2 road bike strapped down on its centre stand. The front wheel was spinning at 130 km/hr on the speedo, and the out of balance wheel was flexing the forks back and forwards about 20-25 mm and up and down on the springs about 10-12 mm. Scary. 1/4 oz/7 g, lead fixed it, I was amazed :eep:
Even if you can't necessarily feel it on the dirt, its still flapping about and worth getting right all the time.

Steve

DaleEO said:

I asked my friend Fritz what he runs up there in Colorado as they have lot's of sharp rocks like we do here in So Cal, he just doesn't have the sand. He recommended Bridgestone 403/404's. So now I am running a 110/100 in the rear, and the 90/100 in the front, with the heavy duty Bridgestone tubes that I have always run. These tires work awesome, way better ride, and the grip is phenomenal on the hard pack, rocks, and really good in the sand.

Click to expand...

+1 8)

Finally ended up with a Pirelli MT 21 120/80, with one rim lock initially. Needed approx. 130-150g of rim weights to balance the tyre! The long row of glued weights looked silly and some of them kept dropping. After having a flat tyre I took the weights off and drilled a hole on the opposite side and put an another rim lock. Needed very little balacing. Two locks made tyre installation considerably harder - pinched the tube with tyre levers first, took some 2 hours to blow out the steam After cooling down a bit it took only an hour to repair the pinch and put the tyre back successfully. It wasn't that hard (3 irons) but I wouldn't say easy either - took a lot of consentration and soap and it felt that there wasnt' that much extra margin left if wan't to keep the rim intact.
The MT21 feels nice in mixed surfaces with around 1.0 bar, seems to last well if speeds on asphalt are kept under 85 kph. It doesn't grip like mx tyre with full knobs but does outperform worm mx tyre easily. Works ok in sand and in mud, the pattern does clear itself with little revving in mud.