Fairing Stay Alternatives For the KTM RC390 Compared

The KTM RC390 is a powerful bike, but I'm not talking about thrust. I'm talking about its power to motivate the aftermarket. Rearsets, exhausts, carbon-fiber bodywork… Shoot, you can even get $2,500 forged wheels from Marchesini for your $5,500 RC390.

Well here's another category of parts now available for the RC390: fairing stays. This one makes sense if you're a racer looking to shed weight or a racer that's obliterated the stock fairing stay in a crash. It just so happens that two companies, Rottweiler Performance and Motoholders (imported by Yoyodyne), both released alternative fairing stays at the same time. And they both sent me samples to check out. Neither stay is designed to support the stock fairing or headlight, so these are track-only components.

The RC’s stock stay is a molded-plastic affair with a weight of about 53 ounces, not including the bulky mounting hardware. If you needed to replace it, your local dealer would charge you about $150 for the two-part, bolt-together assembly.

Then there’s the Motoholder piece, made in the Czech Republic. At $185 it’s a no brainer if you need a new fairing stay. The Rottweiler Performance “Modular Fairing System” is made in Costa Mesa, CA, and goes for $250. The “modular” moniker comes from the dash-mounting options this setup offers—you can mount the stock dash in the standard position or lower than stock, and there’s an additional plate included in the kit for mounting an aftermarket gauge of your choice.

At first blush the two stays seem very similar. Both are made from aluminum with clean welds and nice fittings, though the Rottweiler piece uses more machined components and has a cleaner overall appearance. Weights are roughly the same for both parts: 22 ounces not including any mounting hardware. That’s less than half the weight of the stock stay, and you all know how I feel about shedding weight from racebikes. I love it!

Right away it seems like the Rottweiler piece is beat by the Motoholder fairing stay. It’s more expensive, and unless you want to mount a different dash there’s nothing to distinguish it from the Motoholder. That all changes when it comes time to install them.

The Rottweiler MFS slips into place and bolts right up with the included (pre-Threadlocked) 6mm stainless hardware. I dig that it lets you ditch the OEM shouldered fairing-stay bolts, because those things are huge. I mounted the dash in the stock location (if you’re ever going to remove your dash, note that the rubber connector cover is glued on and has to be carefully cut off) and used the supplied rubber-covered strap to route the wiring toward the frame. There’s no hardware to mount the fairing to the bracket, but the OEM bolts work fine. Installation was a 10-minute procedure, and the Rottweiler bracket makes the RC’s cockpit look considerably more serious.

Mounting the Motoholder wasn’t so straightforward. Immediately problematic was the fact that the bolt holes didn’t line up. That was because the boxed portion of the Motoholder stay didn’t fit over the bracket protruding from the RC’s headstock properly. It only took a few minutes with a file to remove enough aluminum to make the stay fit, but then I had issues with the hardware. The holes in the Motoholder are drilled out to 10mm, presumably to work with those stock shouldered bolts I said I don’t like, and the shoulders are too long and the bolts bottom out before they clamp down on the stay… Two strikes for the Motoholder. I ended up shimming the bolts out with washers. On the plus side, the Motoholder comes with nice countersunk hardware to mount the fairing.

Finally the stay was bolted up and it was time to install the dash. Oddly, it wouldn’t sit flush on the plate due to the presence of four plastic pegs on the back of the dash. The Rottweiler stay is relieved to accommodate the pegs. I could have drilled holes in the Motoholder dash plate for the pegs to pass through, shimmed the dash with washers, or cut off the (purposeless) pegs, but at that point I was already 30 minutes into what should have been a 10-minute ordeal.

Three strikes, and you’re out! I removed the Motoholder and reinstalled the Rottweiler, savoring the ease with which it went on.

Rolling into this review I felt bad for Rottweiler, figuring it would come up short simply because it costs $65 more. I mean, how different could these two parts be? It turns out they’re very different, and the additional coin you’ll spend on the Rotty is money well spent. I guess I’d like to see Rottweiler Performance offer the MFS powder coated orange to match the frame, but that’s more of a suggestion than a complaint! And for what it’s worth, I’ve supplied a list of issues, suggested solutions, and photos to Yoyodyne to convey back to Motoholder in the Czech Republic, so with any luck the next version of its stay will be more refined.