The forks run from the front wheel hub up through the "triple tree"- the bracket that bridges between forks and the steering head welded to the front of the frame.

What you've circled are the handle bar risers.   You could install shorter risers;  you could forsake them altogether and install clip on handle bars directly to the forks; however, doing either of those things wont change important aspects of your steering geometry that account for sought after other-than-straight-line race-character steering- particularly rake -and the later will dispense with a modicum of mechanical advantage offered by the modest tiller introduced by the risers.   The angle of the Savage front end makes for heavy, predictable, un-cafe like handling; to summons some race agility, you'll need to lower the front end a bit- by lowering the triple tree down the forks, shortening the forks, swapping out for a smaller front wheel, lowering the back wheel, or swapping out the back wheel for a larger wheel.  Or a combination of those things.

That's my understanding.   Searching this forum for words like "stance" and "shorten forks" will yield ample how-to's and how-not-to's.

Savage has too high an offset and too high of a positive trail. Rake 35 deg, trail 147 mm (5.8 in)
The axle is ahead of the neck through line.
High offset = higher handlebar effort. High positive trail = stability to the point of not wanting to turn at all, low or high speed. Small positive trail makes for good maneuverability while staying stable -

I can absolutely vouch for the improvement in agility and steering effort of a savage by changing the offset of the triples, which will get trail to a small positive one.
So, I raked a savage 9 degrees via triple trees. Not cutting the frame. Wheel base went up almost 12", and the trail was so far negative that it was unrideable because the dirt bike forks had an axle offset, I had the same offset at the triples due to having to use the savage tank. So wheelbase increased, triples offset same (high handlebar effort), axle offset increased, resulting in a huge increase in trail, something of the order of 18" probably. The rotational kinetic energy was cut in about 1/2 at the same road speed due to fitting a 21" wheel 90 wide tire and aluminum rim. Slower spinning lighter wheel at the same speed. Didn't even matter, unrideable.
Then I flipped the fork legs left to right. So the leading front axle became trailing front axle, and the rake at the neck increased but wheel base decreased. Instant improvement, both in stability and maneuverability. Hard to explain but a long time modifier I knew told me to flip it and it worked.

Anyway that steering effort and lack of maneuverability are huge and Suzuki should have set it up with a Front end more like a GS500 than the one it had, and seriously the tank is the biggest reason why. They had to have the gauge pod in the tank, so its super wide in the front, else it would be even more stupid so that's where its ended up.
If they had to have that triple clamp offset due to the tank, the least they could have done is to fit a 21' aluminum wheel and put the axle behind the fork legs.
I guess in 1986 they didn't know trail was so important and 5+" are a miserable number which really only reason it even is useable is the fact its 350lb and super low to the ground.
Then there are those buckhorn bars. Absolutely terrible for your wrist. Its almost as if they're trying to create carpal tunnel for their customers.
Somebody oughta tell them, hey try not to kill your customers. Then you cant sell them sheiite.


PS - I get what I did now, OK Savage has a huge positive trail. 5.8". I ended up subtracting almost 12" to that, not adding 12". I ended with a big negative trail. My rake went up compensating for a lot of the 12" increase but I still ended up with the axle ahead of the neck through line aka negative trail. That's why the handling went from bad to worse. However the flip to training axle increased the rake a bit, moved the neck through line a bit more forward, but the trailing axle dropped the axle back behind the neck through line leaving me with a small positive trail, and the lower rotational inertia etc etc made for a bike that handled like a charm.
Basically raking the bike at the triples has to be accompanied by a way to put the axle behind the fork legs ,else you end up with negative trail. That's the most important number. You want a small positive number for better handling for both stability and maneuverability to be good. It gets bigger and positive, you start to lose maneuverability for stability. It gets negative and you lose both.

How do those seeger kits make the bike handle ? They even make them for a lot bigger bikes, Intruder and Vulcan don't they ?

Cool.
Srinath.

Great resource, Gary- much thanks.

This thread on rake and trail has a few jems:

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1424120242

As dose portions of this thread which began with steering dampening questions:

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1488745527/24

zipidachimp wrote on 02/06/20 at 17:42:05:


Do those come as a pair, or must you order 2?

This same company made the upper T-clamp for RYCA. Dave got an early one and was not happy with the finish (machine marks from the CNC process). Hopefully they’ve sorted that all out, because the price is very fair.

Armen wrote on 02/07/20 at 05:34:32:

I followed Gary's article and modified a lower tree for use as a top one. Not a ton of work, and much cheaper than the aftermarket ones.

Yep, mine cost me $25 and about 20-30 minutes of my time. But the happiness I get knowing that I did it myself will last a lifetime. That is the essence of custom building.

A link to Gary's work on the triple:

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1426265605/0#0

...and another thread where he discusses related stuff:

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1421689358/0