Front Forks Raised

I searched this forum but found little mention of lowering or raising the front forks in the triple trees.

I raised my forks today to be above the top triple tree by 3/8" today. My purpose was to lower my ST a bit without any weird effects.

I could detect no change in handling at all during a 40 mile ride at various speeds.
I'm certainly no professional rider but have logged 55,700 miles on this ST since 2010.
I thought I might notice a little change in handling but am glad I didn't.

It was easy to do: I cleaned any bugs & dirt from the fork tubes first, then loosed the 3 bolts on the left & right of the triple trees, then slid the tubes up.
I did have the bike on the center-stand, I put my hydraulic jack under the belly of the engine just to make sure that the forks didn't slide way up suddenly from the weight of the bike pressing down on the front wheel.

Now my feet contact the ground a tad flatter.

Lowering the fork tubes as you have done is SOP for VFR800 owners looking to speed up the turn in rate. That amount of drop should be fine, if you go too much further you run a risk of the top of the fender striking the underside of the triple clamp on full compression. Theoretically you should find the steering a little lighter/slightly less stable due to the decreased rake angle, but that would depend how low the rear of the bike is sitting due to load.

Mine have been raised 1/2" for over a year now. I'm running a BT45 front, which is a little larger than stock. I'm running an unconvential rear, which made the bike a little sluggish in turns. After raising the forks, the turn in, is much better.

Ride Safe
John and Janis

I have mine dropped 5 mm (about 3/16") and that's where the top of the fork cap has a smidge of clearance to the rubber mounted handlebar. Mine can't go up any higher and not strike the handlebar riser. I did it to gain back some of the 11 mm ride height increase from setting the fork sag correctly for my weight. Sag was 47 mm and went to 36 making the forks 11 mm higher. The result slowed the steering a bit. I got used to it - that was 120,000 miles ago.

I'm glad I found this thread, though a little late. When I had a VStrom I did this and it improved handling dramatically, more so than the fork brace ever did. I'll be dropping the ST soon, hopefully with the same improvement.