Getin' Low.

[Megadan]

Originally Posted by nij_tp

Dan, when you say 300-310 mm for standard ish height but you went 280 fast ace shock, 1) do you have a link or can you tell me hole sizes (top and bottom (or are they standard) 2) what Spring did you go with or was it a package, I know your height and weight come into play.
Thanks again
P.S re-registered the hawk yesterday and got a sticker today (rear brake light didnt work but the guy just adjusted the nut whilst he was there. so job done. Took it for a spin around the local closed cinema parking lot. Going to do that again tomorrow, build my confidence. Not sure how granny riding is going to mess up the breaking in as I am not confident enough on the road yet to realistically do that, oh well 1st world problems!

I went with a 280mm shock specifically with the intent of lowering the bike. Since the brozz swing arm mounts the shock higher up, it would effectively raise the back of the bike about an inch higher than stock. Combine that with the already half inch of lift I had from the previous shock.... you get the idea lol. I decided to drop the back at least two or three inches to change the chassis dynamics and rider triangle. Since I know from Oneleggedrider's experience with a 290mm shock lowering the back of his bike 3 inches, and that the ratio of length to ride height is roughly 2 to 1, and the Brozz would raise the bike up about an inch, and then subtracting my extra half inch of height, I went 10mm shorter than he did to get the same height. A 3 inch drop is honestly about the limit for these bikes in my opinion. Any more than that and you start to risk limited wheel travel.

My goal is to favor the "street" side of dual sport a bit more, and just make it a better daily road bike, but keep it moderately capable of the kinds of dirt paths I go down, none of which need massive ground clearance.

The shock needs to have 10mm eyelets at both ends for the bolts, but on top of that you will need spacers to mount the shock as the ends are narrower than the factory shock. The shock I just replaced and this fast ace shock had the same width on both ends so my spacers carried over. I needed two 10mm wide spacers on the bottom, and two 5mm wide spacers up top for mine.

In both shocks case the springs were pre installed. The old shock had a spring rated at 1200lb/in. My new shock is rated at 1000lb/in. Fast Ace makes several variations of the shock I am using, with spring rates as low as 250lb/in up to 1000lb/in that I could find. Supposedly there is a 1200lb spring option out there, but I couldn't find it.

The stock shock is 320mm, but unlike the two shocks I have used, it is a dual rate spring, with a very soft initial rate that allows for some sag under the bikes own weight, and then it quickly gets taken up until the secondary rate is hit, which is 1200lb/in like the shock I bought. The big difference being that my shock was a single rate 1200lb/in, so there was no soft rate for it to sag. Then add in the fact that my shock was a few mm longer than the stock shock, it sat VERY high, almost too high for the side stand. Even after I dialed in my preload for proper rider sag.

I think the 1000lb/in rate is a better compromise for a single rate spring when replacing the stock dual rate, especially when paired with a very effective damper like the Fast Ace has. Much better control on both compression and rebound.