I will update the main post, please just reply with any information that has been confirmed and a link to the thread.

 

Get it started and start populating it, and I'll sticky it.

 

08-10 ZX-10R Shock - minor cutting of plastic fairing below the tank (less than 10 minutes work). Settings: adjust preload to ~30mm sag, hs and ls 1,5 turns open
Hayabusa Shock (99-07 i think), don't know about the settings

Front:
2x R/H stock cartridges, 10w oil and öhlins springs

 

Do you have any thread links or links to the products so that I can make it easier.

The idea is to help give people an idea of what is available and what people have done on this bike to ease the confusion.

 

I sent my forks to Traxxion Dynamics : Racing & Sport Bike. They re-valved and re-sprung the forks. $550 package deal.

For the rear shock I purchased the Penske : Penske 8983 Double Adjustable Shock - Remote Reservoir

If you let them know at Traxxion that your a FZ-09 Forum member you get 10% off the shock.

Putting the rear shock on was a real bear. You can't really see much around the front shock mount. Openings to see the shock bolt up front about one inch diameter.

They setup the suspension to your weight and riding style.

They set the preload and all damping. All you need to do is install and ride it. It was spot on for me.

I'm very impressed with their staff at Traxxion. Turn around time was three weeks. Considering this is prime season I was happy with that.

The change in riding around the bumpy back roads of California has a big smile on my face!

cheers,
Steve

 

Yeah I am going to be adding an off the shelf option for the Penske, Traxxion, Elka options. Thanks for the reminder. I am looking to find some of the budget options people have went with, or even the crazy complete swaps that people have done.

 

There might be some useful cross-walks (or at least ideas on where to start looking) from these threads.
Fork upgrades and compatible swaps | FZ-07 Forums
Shock upgrades and compatible swaps | FZ-07 Forums

 

For hayabusa shock: 1999-2007. if you're lucky and it comes with the linkage (that bracket on the right side of the pic) you can move the 10mm bushing over and not have to drill out the shock to accept a 12mm bolt.

 

I will be taking time this weekend to update the main post. Please keep posting information

 

I'm 175 lbs without gears...

Rear
ZX-10 shock 9.1 kg/mm spring with 37mm sag.
LSB: All open (CCW)
HSB: 1.5T in from all open
REB: 1.25T in from all open

Front
.90 kg/mm springs with 38mm sag
130mm oil level 7W (track), 5W if street only
GP piston kit

Cold psi road F32/R32
Track F30/R27

 

Marthy,

In my experience, and I may be wrong here, but suspension settings are measured from fully closed as a reference rather than fully open. Fully closed there is usually a tapered needle sitting in a bypass orifice that shuts it off completely when it's closed, and that is a reference. Fully open is typically where you run out of threads or adjustment.

Also, can the ZX10R shock be turned upside down so that the res is at the bottom of the forward mount? I've seen this with the ZX6RR one and I was wondering if the same holds true for the 10.

Is your fork oil measurement with the springs removed and the forks bottomed out against the dust seals? How low can you get the suspension to go before bottoming out with 130mm?

Thanks,
Dave

 

Updated, please tell me if there is anything missing or incorrect

 

does the zx6r shock work for the same years as the zx6rr? i though it was the same other than that extra adjustment. Also suspension is spelt wrong on the thread title can that be changed??

 

The zx6r shock should be the same years, I will add it as well. And I can't believe I typoed there where I continued to type it fine throughout the post

 

32/32 Tire psi seem low to me, do you have tire wear problem to run low psi and what was the benefit?

 

here's the link for the zx10 shock, post #7

http://www.fz09.org/forum/10-fz-09-builds/920-marthy-s-bike-built.html

you basically have to cut the tray to fit the resevoir


this is still on my to do list have not found my shock yet...

 

I dont think the Nitron Race Pro Shock has been mentioned yet.

Nitron Racing Shocks,Store,(13-14),Yamaha MT09 (13-14) NTR Race Pro

 

I've been trying to sort all all the shock options and see that Elka advertises their shock models as "stages." I'm familiar with carb stages but not shocks--are there standards for shock stages?

 

and Ohlins shock----http://www.sportbiketrackgear.com/ohlins-yamaha-fz-09-2014-s46dr1-shock/

 

If this thread is going to be a stitcky, can we fix the title so "Suspension" is spelled correctly?

 

I tried to change it but it needs to be done by a mod. I started typing this on my phone when I made the original post and went back and edited it on the computer.

 

I've got an 07-08 zx6r rear shock on my bike. Drilled the lower hole out to 12mm. Linkage needs shaved down about 1-2mm to prevent the larger diameter spring from touching in the event of a "top-out". I don't see it happening but you never know when you'll come up on a big bump and get the rear tire off the ground a bit. The 07-08 rear shock has the same adjustments as the zx6rr shock everyone wants its just a lot easier to find and much cheaper. Got mine on eBay for $34 with free shipping.

 

Updated!

 

This is on a 05-06 636, it has raised casting numbers but no red knob. He said it's high low speed adjustable so is this the same as zx6 or zx6rr? It's gonna be $30-40 local pickup so I would like to buy it if its the right one.

 

did you end up getting this one?

 

I can check it out for you next time I get the tank off. But it all come down to a base reference. Just like customer fuel map... depend where you ride or the way you ride.

 

Picked up a 08 Zx6r shock from a guy at my local dealer for $50. Taking it to the local suspension "expert" to have it freshened up/rebuilt for another $120. Wish me luck, do you all advise drilling out the lower linkage or purchasing the proper hardware which is stated earlier in this thread??

Thanks

 

I'd love to see a list of the spring weights people ended up with on their other brand shocks. I'm thinking once I put a zx6r shock on my bike, I can't use the race tech calculator anymore? I'm 210 nekked and thinking I'm going to have to go heavier than the stock 08 zx6r spring.

Also has anyone tried melting the plastic tray and forming it to fit the reservoir, rather than trimming it?

 

Also has anyone tried melting the plastic tray and forming it to fit the reservoir, rather than trimming it?

That's an interesting thought.

 

2nd RH Fork Cartridge

2nd RH Fork Cartridge Project... Fairly happy with the results so I wanted to post it here as an option to help out for those who were contemplating a similar project.

Background-

1. As we know, the front suspension dampning isn't well sorted stock with only the RH forks containing effective dampning.
2. Forks are softly sprung with barely enough rebound adjustment for a lightweight rider, not enough low speed compression dampning and some harshness with high speed compression dampning.
3. I weigh 174# which means with gear 190-200# as full leathers/boots/helmet is right at 200# on the scale.
4. Goal is improved front end suspension for all around riding on the streets and occasional twisies... and out of curiosity I wanted to try something with a 2nd RH side cartridge on the LH Side.

Bike setup baseline
1. ZX10R rear shock with a lot of preload cranked in on the stock ZX10R spring, and 8mm higher ride height than stock unloaded and measured at the rear wheel.
2. Wheelbase shortened to the minimum which if I recall correctly is about 1430mm
3. Front end dropped 10mm from stock flush with top of outer tube.
4. Previous preload with 4 lines showing and rebound 1/8 turn from max
5. Preload on the stock 300mm spring is 8mm with the 120mm plastic spacer
6. Fluid level with spring at 120/118mm for LH/RH from factory (probably very close to the factory spec 148)... Fluid level sets bottoming out on the forks, and stock it was well over an inch from bottoming, also considering the soft spring and lack of compression dampning this will be adjusted.
7. With about 780 miles, fork fluid was very clean and clear. Spec for the stock Yamaha 01 fluid is 15.6 cSt viscosity at 40C
8. When removed, the LH fork leg had very minimal dampening feel with compressions cycles using my body for a shock Dyno. The RH side felt fine.

Thought process was to try the second cartridge with a lighter suspension fluid in both forks, heavier spring, and slightly less starting preload. Lighter fluid as now we have nearly double the dampening influence and I'm concerned about harshness with the stock small orofice emulators.

Bike setup after modification-
1. No changes to the rear, no changes to the front height, paid $60 for the RH cartridge
2. Bel-Ray 2.5W fluid 9.3 cSt viscosity at 40C - used about 400cc of fluid per fork leg
3. Added some air gap to the fluid level with springs installed at 135mm, with cartridges well pumped up and fluid settled for at least 30 minutes
4. Shortened plastic spacer by 5mm to 115mm length for just 3mm preload baseline - probably never needed for anyone, but I wanted as much space as possible for dropping the front if needed with the Woodcraft plates installed.
5. Installed .85 springs from Stoltec with 300mm free length also.
6. Assembled forks so that 3.1 full turns would be available for rebound setting.
7. Set preload to 5 lines showing after install and ride, rebound so that it's barely unseated (almost full slow rebound adjustment)
8. Forks felt weak in compression and rebound compared to a set of Ducati Ohlins with 25mm kit I had to compare with, using the body Dyno... So that's why I set the rebound to the stiffest setting. At this point, I was considering trying 5W fluid but needed to evaluate the setup on the bike.

Well, surprise... It felt great, much better composure especially under breaking and handling bumps with the brakes, and just ran around for a little bit. Better than expected, but I need to spend a lot more time on it to evaluate further. Bouncing on the bike the rebound was barely adequate but seemed to be very good when riding. For more rebound I would need a heavier fluid, but this may work for the current spring preload setting, maybe even a bit lighter. More later.

 

The ZX10R shock also has rebound adjustment. Not sure how picky you are getting on the info. Also, the reservoir can be mounted down so you don't have to trim the tray.

 

Good to hear @Harsay. Pity you didn't have the chance to re-shim both legs. The OE base piston (compression) is fine. The mid-valve (rebound) piston has just ridiculously small bleed holes for the compression stroke. This is directly responsible for harshness at high shaft rates. Thing is Kayaba has properly sized pistons in their catalog. They also have ones where the rebound orifices are way too small but that's not as bad a problem.

Running 9.3cSt@40 you helped alleviate the compression orifice issue somewhat but you considerably lessened the rebound damping. Which is why you had to close the needles. If you want me to work up a custom shim stack for you using the light oil, PM me and I'll see what I can cook up. But ultimately the mid-valve piston just needs to get replaced.

 

Thanks... Since posting that... Maybe 7 weeks ago, I did reshim the bottom compression on both fork legs and enlarged the emulator orofice slightly, and also the bottom tube holes to compensate for using thicker suspension fluid as well. Much better, as low speed and high speed are both less, and I can also add just a little more preload to find a sweet spot... but you're right, I could probably improve it more as I didn't make any changes to the rebound cartridge pop off restriction (or whatever it's called, but I know exactly what you mean)

I was also able to back off the rebound needle a click to allow all of this to work together well.

The different year fork internals had significantly different shim stacks for the compression stock by the way, about half the shims for the 2015 compared to the 2014.

 

I am also interested in seeing the spring rates on the various shock swaps. im 255lbs without my gear. im assuming that means a shock off a heavier bike would be preferable