KTM 990 Superduke?

Author
Discussion

John Laverick

Original Poster:

1,992 posts

214 months

Tuesday 19th July 2011
quotequote all
Sossige said:
Things to look out for:

  • Exhaust Y-pieces commonly corrode around the Y-piece, especially aftermarket ones.
  • Check where the swingarm bolts to the frame - if the paint's marked there, then the engine has been removed at some point (not needed for routine maintenance).
  • The 2007 model received significant updates, but some think the earlier bikes have faster steering.
  • Watch out for ex-race bikes (particularly 05 and 06 bikes).
  • The clutch slave cylinder can fail - look for leaks and make sure that the clutch doesn't drag when riding.
  • Some owners swap the front sprocket for a replacement with one less tooth - gives better acceleration and smoother fuel delivery.
  • The sprag clutch can be noisy, but shouldn't prevent the bike from starting. Some owners have had theirs replaced by KTM, even out of warranty.
  • Faults with the instrument console are not unheard of - check all are 100%, especially the neutral light. Bikes from * 2007 are prone to water ingress in the console.
  • 2006 model had revised suspension, relocated fuel sensor and anthracite colour scheme.
  • Brakes are improved on the 2007 model, along with headlight mask, front mudguard, new speedo/tacho, black frame/wheels, fuel tank increased by 3.5 litres to 18.5, new mirrors, uprated suspension, revised mapping, revised steering head angle.
Servicing mustn't be ignored - first 600miles is a major, then alternates minor/major every 4500 miles. In 2009, budget £130-£250 for a minor and £250-£500 for a major.
Spot on ... just what I needed. Thanks!

old No 1

362 posts

238 months

Tuesday 19th July 2011
quotequote all
Well I bought a 089 59 plate one for 6k in jan with 2900 on the clock and fitted with akros gel seat.

Initially didnt get on with it as the suspension had been set to sports and front sproket was 1 tooth less, went on a 1k hoon round Scotland in may and still was undecided as the fuel range was 110-120 at best and sometimes about 100 before a fill up

So I spent time stting the sag to my weight backed off the commpression rebound to (almost) road settings as per manual and went back to std gearing...different bike!!!
Did over 2k round spain and Portugal few weeks back and it was 37deg and never missed a beat did easy 125 to a tank (although had a 1098 in the group so stopped every 80ish miles) had knees pegs toes down and on the real twisty stuff it was the perfect bike out of multistrada,1098s,gxsr1000,new zx1000,k1300s and a fireblade

Luggage I would recommend is the Kriega us30 as it swings 180deg from the other us bags and has the new straps to fit to subframe

It killed the diablo 3 rears in max 2200m and double that for the front

Service cost me £150 from Thorne superbikes who stopped being a KTM dealer weeks after I bloody bought it but from KTM was £220

Got 6500miles on now and pilot road 3 an rear and Dunlop sport smart on the front ( needed tyres in portugal!) and TBH they are both spot on


John Laverick

Original Poster:

1,992 posts

214 months

Tuesday 19th July 2011
quotequote all
old No 1 said:
Well I bought a 089 59 plate one for 6k in jan with 2900 on the clock and fitted with akros gel seat.

Initially didnt get on with it as the suspension had been set to sports and front sproket was 1 tooth less, went on a 1k hoon round Scotland in may and still was undecided as the fuel range was 110-120 at best and sometimes about 100 before a fill up

So I spent time stting the sag to my weight backed off the commpression rebound to (almost) road settings as per manual and went back to std gearing...different bike!!!
Did over 2k round spain and Portugal few weeks back and it was 37deg and never missed a beat did easy 125 to a tank (although had a 1098 in the group so stopped every 80ish miles) had knees pegs toes down and on the real twisty stuff it was the perfect bike out of multistrada,1098s,gxsr1000,new zx1000,k1300s and a fireblade

Luggage I would recommend is the Kriega us30 as it swings 180deg from the other us bags and has the new straps to fit to subframe

It killed the diablo 3 rears in max 2200m and double that for the front

Service cost me £150 from Thorne superbikes who stopped being a KTM dealer weeks after I bloody bought it but from KTM was £220

Got 6500miles on now and pilot road 3 an rear and Dunlop sport smart on the front ( needed tyres in portugal!) and TBH they are both spot on
Spot on. I'm touring Spain the first week in Sept, I've done it a couple of times before on sportsbikes and I just know the Duke would be far far more fun!

I've been into Thorne Superbikes a couple of times as my parents live just up the road; I wasn't impressed with them to be honest.

There is a KTM dealer in Dewsbury [Craigs KTM] if you need one.

davethebunny

740 posts

175 months

Tuesday 19th July 2011
quotequote all
i've got a first gen one, albeit on a 07 plate.

Pretty much everything has been covered above but here's my pov:

Having always had a variety of sports bikes, i was torn between a SD and a Tuono.

Couldn't afford the newer shape Aprilia and the older one is just ugly.

There's a KTM dealer only 15 miles away, and they had a newer shape demo, so took it out for 100miles.

Then spent an age on ebay trying to secure one to find people had unrealistic price expectations.

One went through 4 times but the bloke still thought it was worth over £5k.

In the end got one off of Superduke.net.

The earlier ones have standard calipers instead of the radial ones of the later bikes, but the later ones are troublesome if not kept spotlessly clean.
There's also a naffer dash, and smaller tank.
Also the steering angle of the newer bikes is shallower than the earlier ones. The later ones can have the forks dropped to emulate the older ones but not vice versa, and the flappy nature of the earlier ones can take some getting used to.

KTM seems to stand for 'keeps taking money'

I toured Devon on mine and the little screw that holds on the magura cylinder fell off, £20 odd to replace it and some of the list prices for the bits mine came with are scary. A completely ste bike cover is £80 odd.

Mine's coming up to it's 15km service and AMS want £450 to do it, which imo is excessive.

It's valve clearances, fluid change and spark plugs so i'll be doing it myself. Plenty of adventure owners with guides on how to do the valves on various forums.

The rear tyre is now screwed but it's done nearly 2000 miles on it, and the front is still good at 3.5k. These are diablo corsa IIIs

Make sure you get one with Akras and the factory map or PC

I get about 100 miles to a tank.

Go and watch the promo vid (Japan) and you be itching to buy one!


Leadfoot

1,901 posts

281 months

Tuesday 19th July 2011
quotequote all


Here's mine: 08 SDR, Akras, G3 throttle cam, R&G tail tidy, Motobox airbox/secondary butterflies & SAS removed (haven't had this chance to ride it since fitting).

Should be +/- 130 bhp now.

The noise is epic.

The seat is murder on the motorway sat in the same position for any length of time.

You know you want one...............unless you want to tour on it!


scorcher

3,986 posts

234 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
davethebunny said:
KTM seems to stand for 'keeps taking money'


Mine's coming up to it's 15km service and AMS want £450 to do it, which imo is excessive.
I've done over 19000 miles on my SMT in 22 months and apart from consumables and a rectifier at 12k its been spot on. Certainly hasn't cost anything over and above any other make of bike.

Just had my 19000 mile service at AMS (Valves etc)and I paid £350 inc after I pointed out that Fowlers quote £349 on their website for the big service on the LC8.( Although I i'm pretty sure they never changed the brake fluid like they should of done!) KTM quote 4.5 hrs for the service on the Duke,which if you break it down,£450 isn't too bad.( @ £60 ph thats £324 inc + parts )

redtwin

7,518 posts

182 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
If they didn't change the brake fluid, a procedure you can easily see, did they even check the valves at all?.

The last time my bike darkened the door of a main dealer (for a simple MOT) they tried to screw me for over £200 for new headstock bearings for it to pass. That was two years ago and the bike has had two MOTs (two different testers) since without so much as an advisory...with the same bearings.

I have developed some serious trust issues. frown

John Laverick

Original Poster:

1,992 posts

214 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
Leadfoot said:


Here's mine: 08 SDR, Akras, G3 throttle cam, R&G tail tidy, Motobox airbox/secondary butterflies & SAS removed (haven't had this chance to ride it since fitting).

Should be +/- 130 bhp now.

The noise is epic.

The seat is murder on the motorway sat in the same position for any length of time.

You know you want one...............unless you want to tour on it!
I demo'd one a couple of weeks back. I LOVED the sound ... it sounded like I was riding a MotoGP bike! I couldn't live with that seat though!

mchoody

328 posts

205 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
I've got a Superduke R for sale for only slightly more than your £6000 budget.



I must be the only person in the world that doesn't like them!

John Laverick

Original Poster:

1,992 posts

214 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
mchoody said:
I've got a Superduke R for sale for only slightly more than your £6000 budget.



I must be the only person in the world that doesn't like them!
Yeah I've seen yours on ebay. Lovely looking bike but the Duke R that I rode had my arse aching within the hour so I don't think I'd cope with 3000 miles around Spain!

Looks like you may have a different seat on yours?

mchoody

328 posts

205 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
The seat has been re-padded so isn't quite as bad! Although you are glad of a fuel break!

davethebunny

740 posts

175 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
John Laverick said:
Yeah I've seen yours on ebay. Lovely looking bike but the Duke R that I rode had my arse aching within the hour so I don't think I'd cope with 3000 miles around Spain!

Looks like you may have a different seat on yours?
what's up with you lightweights smile



John Laverick

Original Poster:

1,992 posts

214 months

Wednesday 20th July 2011
quotequote all
davethebunny said:
what's up with you lightweights smile


Ermmmm .... that's not an R? tongue out

Matbmx1

382 posts

199 months

Thursday 21st July 2011
quotequote all
I've got an 05 model and I must admit I think it's an awesome bike.

Comfort is okay for say 300 mile days wouldn't fancy any 500 mile days on it though! They are brilliant if you like messing about a bit with wheelies/stoppies etc really flatters my wheelie ability...

Good fun out in the twistys as well, I've found it's slowed me down a bit as well and concentrate more on keeping good corner speed etc. Top end does lose out to sports bikes so just need to be quick into, round and out of corners so they don't catch you!

Overall a very fun bike and highly recommended in my opinon

John Laverick

Original Poster:

1,992 posts

214 months

Monday 8th August 2011
quotequote all
Well I bought one:

[Apologies for the crap phone pictures]




hostyle

1,322 posts

216 months

Monday 8th August 2011
quotequote all
Even in crappy phone pics it looks good. Have fun with it!

Sossige

3,176 posts

263 months

Monday 8th August 2011
quotequote all
hostyle said:
Even in crappy phone pics it looks good. Have fun with it!
+1.

davethebunny

740 posts

175 months

Tuesday 9th August 2011
quotequote all
pull those baffles out sharpish

graham22

3,295 posts

205 months

Tuesday 9th August 2011
quotequote all
davethebunny said:
pull those baffles out sharpish
No point, only makes it too noisy & less usable at low speeds due to the noise. Doesn't seem to make much difference at higher revs, no noticable gain in performance with them out.

Wooderson

412 posts

223 months

Tuesday 9th August 2011
quotequote all
humpbackmaniac said:
I had one, bloody good machine, if you can get your head around spending that much money and not having a huge amount of metal. I know that seems strange but they are so slim/well designed that you can see daylight through every point and coming from an 08 Busa it just seemed very minimal. I think it all stems from KTM's dirt bike roots they know how to make a bike in a Bauhaus design, nothing there doesnt need to be.

As for riding it, I dont know your temprament, but I am a normal chap, good lady wife, live in a cottage in the country, company director etc and I went feckin everywhere on the back wheel. May just as well have taken the front one off and saved the weight it was only needed at traffic lights and for parking. Huge fun just dipping the clutch on every overtake and hoiking a second gear minger past every poor sod that dropped below my predetermined hooning speed.

Drank fuel, stalled often when in carparks at walking speed (mine was an earlier 56 plate) lovely attention to detail on all metal parts, clocks always annoyed me, yours will be the better later version but mine looked like they were Fisher Price best.
Never went wrong, and to save your time the battery is in the bellypan, took me a morning to find that out!

It is a bike that everyone should own at least once. IF you can tollerate the little Orange Devil on your shoulder!
hehe

A great write up that makes me seriously think about chopping in my baby monster for one.