Best aftermarket frame???

[creech10]

Just wondering what everyones oppinion is on whats the best aftermarket frame for the 400ex?

[Cole Trane]

LAEGERS!!

[roostin_dale]

Arens

Originally posted by roostin_dale
Arens

lol, yeah right.


Id have to say Laegers with roll and walsh right behind them.

[Dave400ex]

He said for a 400ex. I don't believe Laeger, Roll, or Walsh even make one for the 400. Get the Arens!

[roostin_dale]

Originally posted by Dave400ex
He said for a 400ex. I don't believe Laeger, Roll, or Walsh even make one for the 400. Get the Arens!

exactly...

[crap-banshee32]

yea, for 400ex geometry,, go arens..


Does anyone else have an aftermarket 400ex geometry frame?

hmm

Nick

[Dave400ex]

LSR is the only other one I can think of.

[Tommy 17]

laegers don't even make frames anymore!!!! there is no such thing...



the only 400ex frames are ARENS, LSR, JB (pretty sure they make one)

[crap-banshee32]

JB can make u a custom frame to however u want it.

i know ppl around here with them, there really nice

[Cole Trane]

when did laegers stop making frames? I was on thier site not to long ago and I thought I saw them. I just checked again and watta ya know! I look like an idiot!

[roostin_dale]

laeger stopped making them when they stopped allowing aftermarket frames in the pro class...

[crashinmatt]

Jody Bateman (JB Racing) I thought made the leager frames now??? But I know Jody will make a 400ex frame, or a 400ex geometry frame for a hybrid. If you are running 400ex stuff now, thats the way I'd go, unless you want to switch over to 250r geometry.

[Tommy 17]

yeah jb makes the laeger frames...


but they still aren't a laeger... mark laeger is not makin the frames so they are no longer laeger... same geo yes... same builder no...

[RobRacing]

whats leagers website adress. I didn't even know they had one.

[Cole Trane]

www.laegerracing.com

There ya go!

[SnellCRP]

Does JB racing have a website?

[jdpdave]

they stopped making frames when dave at jd performance quit working for them about 2 yrs ago. nobody is building (laeger frames) dave was the only frame builder .

[Cole Trane]

What's up dave? Everything has been working like a mule!!

[Acid_Rain]

We only make a couple of frames a year, mainly banshee's for the pont de vux race in france. CJ was making them but we have the jigs back now, so no one is making them, LRD makes a couple under the Leager banner though.

And yes the world is going to pro production so there is no need for a aftermarket frame any more.

[lil400exman]

Originally posted by Tommy 17
yeah jb makes the laeger frames...


but they still aren't a laeger... mark laeger is not makin the frames so they are no longer laeger... same geo yes... same builder no...
tommy what i was told by john arens is that Laegers contrcted JB to make the last few frames and JB took it over so its a laegers frame just with a different sticker on it..........kinda like chevy/gmc;)

[Acid_Rain]

Arens had a couple of our AFTERMARKET frames like the 450/250R that they made a jig off of, the only problem with that is that you can't really make a good copy of a copy.

[Jnine]

Correction Guys..... I have (or did have) 2 Laeger frames in the shop to compare what we were building with what they were doing.

When you set our frame next to the Laeger frames they were nearly identical. The tube layout followed each other EXACTLY. I believe we use a slightly larger bend die on some of the radii however, but I wanted large sweeping angles instead of tighter corners. The two being nearly identical in layout should be no surprise however, since they are both supposed to be stock replacement geometry frames. We make our brackets a little differently while they tend to have a few more that are hand cut, but that's no big deal either way. I found the welds on the Laeger frame to look very good. The only thing that I didn't like all that much were that some of the tolerances and angles were not as tight as they could have been. Some of the tubes came in out of square, but that was not in areas critical to handling, and is a trait more common to a hand built frame, which is what it is. All in all, a good frame.

One thing for sure is it was nothing I or anyone else was going to copy now or at any time in the future. In fact, why in h**l would anyone copy a frame now? Especially since I have been building frames for 8 years, and our tooling and process is very different than theirs. SO... The "copy of a copy" statement from the previous post is confusing at best, and I'm not sure why anyone would assume that, but we all know how rumors start in this sport. No copy of a copy from me. I've never copied anyone in this sport, and I'm sure as h##l not gong to start now.

As for who is building what, Laeger quit frame production from what I have been informed by one of his distributors. Since he had also been selling my frames for quite a few years, he asked me to pick up the CR500 Link option, which I agreed to. As that happened JB was going to (and perhaps did) aquire the tooling to build the standard 250R frame, while I have the specs to build the CR500 Link chassis. However, we were going to use our existing tooling to do that.

That's how it all sits today. In fact, we're doing a CR500 link bike for a magazine test at this time, and we're continuing to build the standard "R" Million Mile frame. Hope it clears it up for everyone.

[Acid_Rain]

Check my profile, I work for mark and I make the frames and do the repairs when needed, call me the horses mouth.

[Jnine]

So what is the story on the frames? From what I was told by one Laeger Dist, the frames were done other than perhaps a couple for special races like the PDV. BTW, if those are your welds, you do a very nice job...

[Pappy]

Originally posted by Acid_Rain
Arens had a couple of our AFTERMARKET frames like the 450/250R that they made a jig off of, the only problem with that is that you can't really make a good copy of a copy.

i inspected a new ...BARE arens frame yesterday and i was pretty impressed. arens frame is pretty damn nice.....i wish the wait for them was a bit shorter but probably worth it IMO

[Acid_Rain]

Last year I made 6 of the Banshee's for PDV, this year I think only 3-4 will be made, they are just too much of a hassle for us to do, it is much easier to make 10-15 sets of arms, in the same time 1 frame could be completed. As for others frames, there are none that will be made, just 4-5 250r's that need a little love. Thanks

D A V E

[2k2-300exnj]

hey pappy my frame was almost a no wait, john went out of his way to ship it to you in 3 days so i would have it for my race, i cant wait to get it i look out the window like 20 times a minute for the big brown truck.... thanks a lot pappy you helped a lot too with the fast pc job and shipping

[Jnine]

I bet the Banshee frames are hard to make since the two sides are not mirror images of each other. I know what you mean about the time though, but for me it's almost the opposite. Since I really never ventured into all the possibilities with aftermarket frames, I built my tooling and process to build the same one over and over, and that's what we did. My frames were based on the stock geometry since most guys had some aftermarket and stock parts they wanted to use, and I didn't want to make those parts obsolete and force them to buy new. We did make changes and improvements through the years, but basic geometry stayed the same. I thought you guys could handle the narrow frame / pro-trax front end /cr500 link stuff. I would do the basics. As it turns out, I will do some of the CR500 links since that rear end shock fixture is easily interchangeable. In fact, I just finished a no-link rear end setup for the DC2 system, and that frame is going to the guy who won the best in the desert series last year. I'll never change the main frame however. That would require a major fixture change, and that is not going to happen.

As for the time in building A-arms and other parts, to me the a-arms are the most time consuming with the multiple bends and parts that intersect at odd angles midway through the bends. It's very difficult to fixture for notching in any automated system, especially since riders want +1, +2, long travel, std travel, etc. The fixturing is very position critical, and they are quite expensive to make due to the number of bushings, pivots, tie-rods, etc. It makes it difficult to build them in any large numbers to be more efficient.