Nick, I'd be interested to see what you thought of mine. I can by no means ride to the capabilities of the bike it also has an R6 shock, K-Tech front springs and the Fully Monty Ivanising so the main difference is the R1 setup.
I think what you won't have, Liam, is the reduced flex that the R1 conversion gives you. This helps with stability in fast cornering, especially on a bumpier road. Also, I don't really understand the technical side of suspension very well. Luke muttered something about 'emulators', and Yamazer (^above) said something about them too, but I'm in the dark here. Someone care to explain what this is about? I believe it is what is reducing the dive under hard braking, and keeping a much more level platform. I'm guessing this means that the front is being pushed less on the approach to a corner when hard braking, allowing for later braking, as I don't need to allow the bike that fraction of a second to settle after braking before committing to the corner as on a standard Fazer set up, but tbh, I don't entirely understand what's going on, only what I feel the results to be.
The bike now has quite a firm front set up generally, noticeably more so than before. I think some folk may not like that bit, as it's perhaps less forgiving on the arms during more normal riding. On bumps for instance, the bike handles this well, seems less likely to be thrown off line (which on a firmer set up seems a bit of a paradox to me
*confused* ) but you do feel them through the bars and your arms. I'm happy to take this little bit of compromise on the 'comfort' side for the rewards given, others might not be.
I'd also probably best say something about the fact that I haven't ridden any sports bikes since the early 90s, so don't have a great deal of experience of sportier handling to compare with (lest my last post confuse anyone). So again, I can only record my own impressions since having the conversion done, and all is relative to how it felt before. But I am very happy with the results