Bandit Alley
MODEL SPECIFIC => SUZUKI BANDIT 250 & 400 => Topic started by: Racerruss-ducati on July 01, 2005, 10:37:50 PM
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As promised before, Installation report for 2003 GSX-R shock.
First, this is not for the faint of heart with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver!!! Maybe the 90-92 GSX-R shock with a remote reservoir is a better choice, if you can find one.
Blow by Blow:
1. remove gas tank, battery, battery box, air box.
2. put a 2x4 on the ground and put center stand up on it to raise the rear off the ground a lot. You will see why later.
3. Remove the coolant overflow bottle. I found a spot on the left side between the cylinder head and radiator to mount the bottle. I had to modify the horn bracket a little to get it all to fit, but it turned out pretty clean and you can access the bottle without removing any body work.
4. Now its time for the good tools. The bolts that hold the suspension are incredibly tight. You will need good sockets (at least Craftsman or equivalent) and good combination wrenches in 10, 12, 14 and 17mm sizes. You will have bloody knuckles and rounded off nuts (on the bike :wink: ) if you use inferior tools. Remove the bolt that holds the dog bones to the shock linkage, remove the upper and lower shock bolts and let the linkage drop down. The shock will easily come out the bottom.
5. You should adjust the shock prior to installation, since the spring is almost impossible to adjust once installed.
5a. If you plan to use the stock dog bones, set the spring near the lowest preload. This will allow the bike to sag about 60 mm and the attitude will be about right once you are sitting on it. Note that the centerstand will no longer raise the rear wheel enough to rotate due to the shock being longer.
5b. I fabricated new dog bones with holes that were 15mm further apart and then I set mine to the middle for compression and rebound damping and adjusted the spring to nearly full preload in order to achieve 25mm rear sag.
6. You will need to grind away sufficient metal in the bottom shock bracket to clear the linkage (I have a sketch, but I can't figure out how to put into post, I'll update it later)
7. The stock dog bones are too close together to clear the spring. You must disassemble the upper dog bone bracket (pull off the right side footpeg, bracket and brake lever. I went to the hardware store and bought 7/16” SAE washers and placed 2 on each side between the dog bones and the frame bracket. You should also do this on the shock linkage when the dog bones are attached. Note that the bolts will be too short to engage the self locking features in the nuts, so I used LockTite on all of the linkage nuts. Ditto for the bottom shock attachment bolt.
8. Install shock and attach dog bones. If you didn’t do item 2 above, the rear tire will be too far up to install shock with the stock dog bones. Reassemble rest of bike. Note that the top of the shock reservoir will be in contact with airbox, but the airbox will flex enough assemble and it should not cause a problem later.
Results: I also installed Race-Tech 0.85 kg/mm fork spings and preloaded them for 25mm of sag and replace the fork oil with 15W Maxima. Overall, the bike feels much tighter (like a Corvette compared to a Chevy Impala). I also installed flat drag bars as a cheap and easy alternative to clip-ons. This was very successful project in terms of performance and feel. I’ll let everyone know how it performs on the track in a couple of weeks. I hope it cures the heavy grounding of the pipe and kick stand I had the last track day.
Total time for the shock installation and mods about 4 hours and 2 hours for the front spring/fork oil change.[/img]
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Its nice to know that some one else has taken on this mod. I was a bit discouraged by the letters of people who said that the shock would not fit because of the reservoir. I did it to my B4 about four months ago and I love it. I to wrote up a how to letter so that others could take advantage my learning experience. I am surprised that the more hands on guys with mechanical experience on this site have not explored this upgrade. I have learned alot from you guys here at this site. I know its a bit of work but it is worth it. I can't wait to hear what you have to say when you test it. The bike looks more agressive and handles like a dream. I am now working on a gsxr 1000 front end mod. I will post the how to when I am done. I need to figure out a few things. :beers:
400runner
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I did not go that route do to the length difference! I chose the Penske route
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Thanks, Russ! Nicely done. I have access to a cheap new-style GSXR shock. I may give it a shot even though I'm diggin' my B12 shock. The added height, even with the B12, definitely does look more agressive. I was just looking at some old pics with the old shock. There is a definite difference.
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Its nice to know that some one else has taken on this mod. I was a bit discouraged by the letters of people who said that the shock would not fit because of the reservoir. I did it to my B4 about four months ago and I love it. I to wrote up a how to letter so that others could take advantage my learning experience. I am surprised that the more hands on guys with mechanical experience
400runner
I never said it couldn't be done, you can put a jet engine on a skate board it you really wanted too. It's just a lot easier to use a 91/92 GSXR shock and in my opinion it looks better, no overflow bottle hanging off here or there!!!
One more little bit of info the older shock is a better shock in to opinion of my suspension guy who has been in the industry for 20 years, Use to work for Noleen's and team Honda. His brother inlaw still does. and the older shock is easy to adjust
Just my 2 cents worth
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I'm sure you're right, Chris. I think the issue is that it's easier to find a newer one in decent shape.
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Rob there hasn't been a week go by where there isn't a couple of the older shocks on ebay, most in the 10 to $20 range
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russ could you post a pic of your coolant bottle now that u have moved it?
ta
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russ could you post a pic of your coolant bottle now that u have moved it?
ta
Sorry, I don't have a place online to post a picture that everyone can read. If someone has a suggestion of a site that will let you do that, I would be happy to along with a sketch of the shock modification.
Russ
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russ could you post a pic of your coolant bottle now that u have moved it?
ta
If someone has a suggestion of a site that will let you do that, I would be happy to along with a sketch of the shock modification.
Russ
www.imageshack.com
www.photobucket.com
www.bikepics.com
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If you guys go to my instructions for the this mod you will find what to do with the coolant bottle. I had killerB and B4cruz look at my work and they agree that it is a clean job. Everything looks the same but two inches back towards the tail. So you cant see the bottle. Very profesional. I did not want to change the look of the bike. I will post pics tonight when I get in from work. I am also interested in what Russ has done with the bottle. Maybe has a better idea I can use. But I am happy with how mine turned out.
400runner
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I will try to post the pics tonight.
I looked at mounting the bottle behind the battery box, but it seemed as though the rear wheel would hit it at full compression, so I decided not to go that route. However, I will have a look at 400Runner's pics and see if I overlooked something.
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The pics of the positioning of the radiator overflow tank and of the sketch for modification necessary to the '03 GSX-R shock is is at the following web site http://www.bikepics.com/members/racerruss/93bandit400/.
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I have been trying to set up an account with bikepics but I think their new accounts page is down. I tried last night and this morning and nothing. Anyhow I will try a different photo share site tonight. I think you will like what I have to show.
400runner
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If you want to post the pics in your messages here, Bikepics isn't the one to use. They don't like you using them for a host if its to use the pics on a BBS. If you just post a link to them, that's OK, but they've been deleting pics of folks who get high hit counts and even tell you not to do this when you sign up. Imageshack and Photobucket are better choices if your goal is simply to get a pic to show up in a post.
Also, if you're posting pics, please read the post in the board FAQ section about posting pics and try not to post pics larger than the dimensions in the thread. The idea is to keep pics to a size that we don't have to start scrolling left-to-right to read the posts, as large pics will stretch the window of all posts in that page of the thread.
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looks the goods dude!!! you wouldnt know it wa there unless you were looking for it!
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Nice job on the install Russ. Since you fabricated your dog bones, is there any chance you have the stock ones handy where you could measure them and let us know the distance from center of hole to center of hole? If you can, that would be great. If not, no worries. Thanks!
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TheKillerB wrote:
Since you fabricated your dog bones, is there any chance you have the stock ones handy where you could measure them and let us know the distance from center of hole to center of hole? If you can, that would be great. If not, no worries. Thanks!
The old dog bones were 198.5mm give or take a half mm.
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Cool! Thanks for the measurement. Just picked up an '04 gixxer shock off eBay last night.
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The '04 and '05 Gixxer shock is about 15 mm longer ( I can't remember exactly how much) than the '00-03 shock. You will definately have to make some new dog bones, luckily they are not that hard to make.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
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Ohlins web site says the difference between the '00-'03 and '04-'05 is 7.5mm. Are changes in shock length and dog bone length directly proportional? Like if a shock is 25mm longer than stock, and you install dog bones that are 25mm longer, does seat/tail height remain the same? I'm thinking no. So does anyone know the ratio?
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Teach me to work from memory, you are correct. I think you will need to remove more material from the end of the shock (see sketch I directed you to in other parts of this thread) to prevent it from mechanically locking prior to the full shock extension.
The ratio for shock length to dog bone is not linear, i.e. the ratio at 10% compression is not the same as it is at 20% compression. And at closer to 0 compression, it is a big difference. Without taking pretty accurate measurements of the linkage and angles of the swing arm, it is impossible to solve, and if you did get the data and solve it, the result would not be a ratio, but instead a formula dependent on swing arm angle.
Luckily several of us have experience with this mod. My new shock was about 13mm longer than stock (again, from my memory, no gaurentee)
I wanted to raise mine up a lot, but the new shock made it too tall for the centerstand. So I placed a 1/2" board under my rear tire with the bike on the centerstand and physically marked up new dogbones that happened to be 15mm longer than stock. I would suggest using the same method as it resulted in exactly the correct attitude I was looking for. Maybe others have different experience (or better have solved the math problem) and have other advice.
Good luck, Russ