My wife Jessica on her '00 SV before I
This is Jessica at TrackDoD II on her old '00 SV after I had converted it for race use. This is the basic shape I ran the bike in during the early part of the 2000 race season. A little later I managed to finally get my bodywork for the bike in from Ram Racewares (carbon fiber bodywork) and finish getting the bike fully race prepped. At this event, with Jessica riding the bike is the only time it has gone down on the track so far :-P

I “appropriated” my wife’s SV650 street bike and turned it into one of my race bikes.  You can see the pictures of the process by going to My Pictures and clicking on the SV650 page.  Here’s the list of things I did to the bike to get it race ready:

  • Strip off all the street lights and such
  • Strip off the stock seat and tail section
  • Remove the kick stand
  • Remove the chain guards from the swingarm
  • Remove the stock handlebars and replace them with Two Brothers Racing Titanium adjustable clip ons
  • Add the Scott’s Steering Damper (damper and mounting kit also from Two Brothers Racing)
  • Hand drill all the necessary bolts so I could safety wire the bike (this job sucked!)
  • Put EBC brake pads front and rear (they REALLY make the bike stop good)
  • Put Galfer braided steel brake lines front and rear (get rid of that mushy feeling from the brakes, make it easier to apply the proper amount of brake pressure)
  • Replace the stock exhaust with a complete titanium, high exit exhaust system from Two Brothers Racing (some have told me the M4 exhaust makes more power, but I haven’t checked myself to see)
  • Use a Factory Jet Kit to get better power out of the motor
  • Get a BMC air filter
  • Add a Sharkskinz Ducati 916 solo rear tail section and seat pads (this lowers the bikes ride height quite a bit and also makes the foot pegs closer to the seat, don’t do this if you have long legs ;-)
  • Removed the stock footpegs and replaced them with a set of Vortex rear sets
  • Added Ram Racewares (www.rammc.net) bodywork to the bike. The bodywork isn’t bad, but it doesn’t fit all that well as delivered, and the mounting instructions could use a real writer to make them better. If you have the patience to figure out how to mount the bodywork, then it does good. I would try and stick to an M4 pipe with this bodywork though, it doesn’t quite get out of the way of the TBR pipe I have and as a result if caramelized around were the pipe was touching the carbon fiber. I had to cut that section out and patch it back in with fiberglass and also make the fiberglass bulge out to avoid having problems here.
  • Remove the stock grips and put some better ones on.
  • Add spools to the rear swingarm so you can use a decent stand to lift the bike up on
  • Take the forks off and cart them to the guys at Traxxion Dynamics to be re-valved and re-sprung to match my weight
  • Scrap the stock shock and replace it with a Penske racing shock
  • Scrap the stock tires and get some race rubber (I’m using Metzeler/Pirelli for all my rubber needs)

And these are the things I still have to get done:

  • Do a complete 520 chain conversion
  • Get enough different sprockets so that I can get the gearing right at each track I go to
  • Re-Work the solo tail section’s mounting arrangement, it currently rubs against the gas tank when you sit on it and has rubbed the paint completely off of a couple spots on the tank
  • Find some spare rims so I don’t have to remount my rain tires every time I want to use them
  • Find a way to get more power out of the motor legally!!