alright, I read up on things a bit. all the following comes from "motorcycle design and technology" by Gaetano Cocco (an engineer at Aprilia) copyright 2004
"phenomena that generate wobble: Front wheel shimmy is usually generated by external stressors such as, for example, a small pothole or any other type of uneveness in the road surface which "pushes" against the tire, including lateral pressures. Wheel imbalance and eccentricities due to tire or rim deformation, repeated, obviously with the same frequency that the wheel rotates, can also provoke dynamic imbalance that generates wobble"
"Main Parameters that influence wobble: "
"Trail:Motorcycles with high rake angle and trail will certainly be stable up to high speeds, but when headshake phnomenon occurs it will be decidedly violent and thus difficult to control"
"Front end inertia around the steering axis...front tire...lateral flexibility of the fork..."
"A steering damper is very effective for damping wobble movements..."
so swapping engines dosnt really change any of those. in a straight line, the bike should essentially act like it did with its previous engine. I guess I'm still not seeing how the swap will increase the liklihood of headshake.
how do the high power sportbikes deal with this sort of thing? just steering dampers? the power curve of a two stroke is similar to that of a turbocharged engine, so how do the turbo 'busa guys deal with it?
I guess I'll just keep reading.
thanks,
Adam Lewis