Lowering the HAWK?

[NickThrash]

I'm sure everyone can agree that the HAWK sits a bit high, being a dirt bike and all. And at the average height of 5'9, I have no problems when on the smooth, even pavement of the city roads.

BUT when off road and on hilly, uneven, sinking mud, dirt roads I feel like I am sitting up too high and cant achieve a "Perfect balance" when the need to put a foot down comes about, and I would feel more comfortable being a bit lower and being able to easily get my feet and legs more stable.

SO I was looking into lowering kits or lowering links for the back suspension and was wondering if anyone had ANY advice or recommendations on if I should even do this, what the best brand would be, if It's even worth it, or if anybody has done it to their HAWK.

[chuck]

Originally Posted by NickThrash

I'm sure everyone can agree that the HAWK sits a bit high, being a dirt bike and all. And at the average height of 5'9, I have no problems when on the smooth, even pavement of the city roads.

BUT when off road and on hilly, uneven, sinking mud, dirt roads I feel like I am sitting up too high and cant achieve a "Perfect balance" when the need to put a foot down comes about, and I would feel more comfortable being a bit lower and being able to easily get my feet and legs more stable.

SO I was looking into lowering kits or lowering links for the back suspension and was wondering if anyone had ANY advice or recommendations on if I should even do this, what the best brand would be, if It's even worth it, or if anybody has done it to their HAWK.

You can lower the seat like 2LZ and I did and that will not effect the travel of the bike.It's the Csc aftermarket seat for the TT250.

[jimwildman]

Originally Posted by NickThrash

I'm sure everyone can agree that the HAWK sits a bit high, being a dirt bike and all. And at the average height of 5'9, I have no problems when on the smooth, even pavement of the city roads.

BUT when off road and on hilly, uneven, sinking mud, dirt roads I feel like I am sitting up too high and cant achieve a "Perfect balance" when the need to put a foot down comes about, and I would feel more comfortable being a bit lower and being able to easily get my feet and legs more stable.

SO I was looking into lowering kits or lowering links for the back suspension and was wondering if anyone had ANY advice or recommendations on if I should even do this, what the best brand would be, if It's even worth it, or if anybody has done it to their HAWK.

i replaced the rear shock for a shorter less stiff one. seat down a few inches and im happy with that.

[Rail32]

Lowering links are not an option for the hawk as the shock is mouted on frame and swing arm . No linkage . But Like stated a shorter shock will work . Also taking seat apart and shaving a couple of inches of foam off and restapling cover will lower seat height .

[dossbag]

I lowered my Storm. Just got a shorter shock and hacked it to fit

Not sure if I did a thread on it?

Oh... I did... Here it is

[NickThrash]

Originally Posted by jimwildman

i replaced the rear shock for a shorter less stiff one. seat down a few inches and im happy with that.

What Shock did you use?

[jimwildman]

Originally Posted by NickThrash

What Shock did you use?

there is a post here with pics and details. I tried a few options like moving the mount point placing more leverage on the original shock, results were great until the shock seal blew from the increased stress.

I rode close to 60 miles on a blown shock that day, tire wore a hole in the air box, and the hawk paddled my ass the whole way. had to lean forward the whole way to lessen the abuse.

the shock i have on there is common on ebay and amazon, and was meant for a klx110 i belive, its a bit soft until you adjust the preload a bit,

the hawk shich i belive is 320mm from hole to hole, this was 280mm, a 300mm would make half the change in height. e.t.c.

i believe we covered the spring load and all in that post.

so 280-320mm in length. with 12mm bolts. spacers may be required.

there are alot of options.

[JonBrodin]

Originally Posted by chuck

You can lower the seat like 2LZ and I did and that will not effect the travel of the bike.It's the Csc aftermarket seat for the TT250.

Chuck, very interested in this solution. I'm looking into replacing the stock seat with the csc seat for the tt250. Did you have to modify the seat to fit it to the hawk?

[Megadan]

For every 5mm change in shock length you will see a rough ride height change of half an inch.

If you wanted to lower the rear of the bike about 2 inches you would want a 300mm shock length.

I installed a 325mm length shock and saw a measured increase of 12mm.

OneLeggedRider installed a 290mm shock on his Hawk and saw a decrease in height of 3 inches.

AFAIK he never had an issue with bottoming out the bike even with that much of a drop. A big part of that is due to the fairly limited suspension travel these bikes have compared to a proper dirt bike. The rear wheel only has a little over 6 inches of total travel at most.

Just two examples to show the numbers in practice.