Super ATV Radius Arms for Honda Talon 1000R

As always Pure Offroad had these in my hands very fast. Since my factory radius rod was bent I was in a hurry to get these installed. The instructions say these are preadjusted to the factory lengths and are ready to install so I did just that. Installation was about as fast as you can take eight nuts off and reinstall them. Next was a quick check ride, mostly slow trails through a wooded park. That lasted about 15 minutes and went very well. I then proceeded to take it to the next level, a quick romp down a fire road. Again about a 15 minute ride but there was something wrong. The Talon had a very floaty feel in the back end, not the planted feel I was accustom to from the Talon. Any movement in the steering caused the Talon to dart in the direction of the steering movement. A check of the radius rods reveled one of the jam nuts had backed off. The jam nut was retightened and the other jam nuts were checked. Most were "snug" at best, none were tight, so I tightened them up. However, this didn't cure the nervousness in the rear of the Talon. Back home I go. I removed all the SuperATV radius rods and checked their lengths against the "unbent" factory ones. I learned that the upper rods were about .100" shorter than stock and the lower rods were about .190" shorter than stock. (I actually made a 15 mm pin and a 12 mm pin then using the factory radius rods I mounted these pins onto a piece of square tube.) The SuperATV upper rods needed extending about 3/4 of a turn to get them to the factory length, the lower rods needed extending about 1 1/2 of a turn to get them to the factory length. (That's how I got the 0.100 and 0.190) These dimensions are hard to achieve with a slide tape measure. That's what I tried to use and everything measured really close to the stock dimensions, within a 1/16". That's why I made the jig. I shared these numbers with a friend who is a lot smarter than I am AND he owns a calculator. I was informed that when I installed the SuperATV radius rods the resulting geometry change caused a 1.5 degree toe out condition for each corner, 3.0 degrees total toe out across the rear axle. So to sum up. Never trust anyone. It is only right when you have checked it and verified that it is right. It is only tight when you have tightened it. So if your Talon doesn't drive straight and has a nervous/floaty feel in the rear check the SuperATV radius rod lengths.