Aftermarket suspension work?

[RoadBuilder]

Who has had their S3's suspension reworked either by pros or by dropping in new springs/internals themselves? Who did you use, did it do what you'd hoped, and how (in)expensive was it?

[Speed3]

I have Race Tech springs and an Ohlins. I had my tech do the forks because I didn't know what I was doing. Total cost IIRC was around 500. The Ohlins was 800.00, and I installed it. Worth every penny to get the correct spring rates for my body weight ( with gear). I can ride faster with more confidence now.

[scratch]

The local Race Tech authorized shop re-built my suspension for me. Gold Valves front and back, new bushings/seals/oil, and new Eibach springs matched to my weight. Totalled out to @ $1,100.00

It took a few miles to really begin to appreciate the results. The bike soaks up surface irregularities much better than before; its like night and day. I find myself able to tolerate staying seated for railroad crossings that I always took standing on the pegs before. Wallowing motions caused by hitting bumps in a curve are now damped out and gone in the first compression/extension cycle, which gives me the confidence to pick up the pace a notch. The range of adjustability is also much improved with the Gold Tech valves, allowing the ride to go from (relatively) plush to firm & sporty depending on the settings selected. To summarize: the Triple feels more planted and on top of that is less fatiguing to ride - this bike is better than new!

[littlefield]

Scratch,
Who did yours? I had mine done at Motorcycles Unlimited, he said Racetech didn't have a pre-engineered solution for the UDS 1050 forks (about 6 months ago) but they went back and forth a couple of times and got good results. $500 plus $800 something for an Ohlins rear.

[Curmudgeon]

Below is my prior post on this subject from its original thread:

Motivation:
As I've mentioned on other threads, I weigh 175 pounds (with gear), I found the stock suspension harsh and lacking compliance over bumps (even after setting sag and twiddling the damping adjusters), so I had my forks reworked and got a Penske shock. I'm much happier with the ride now.

I writing this post primarily to pass on what I learned from the regarding the stock suspension from Phil Douglas, at Aftershocks Suspension, in Palo Alto, California.

Fork Springs:
Triumph describes the stock springs as dual-rate progressive springs. Phil said that the windings were all too widely spaced for any coils to fully compress, even at the limit of suspension travel, so they are effectively straight-rate springs. He found the rate is 0.89. He modified my springs to 0.95 and cut 8mm from the internal preload spacers, to get a final sag of 35mm with four lines showing on the preload adjusters.

Fork Compression Damping:
Phil thought the harshness I complained about was a result of the compression damping. In particular, he thought the point at which the oil entered the high speed circuit was too late, so he changed the shim stack to allow the oil flow to transfer to the high-speed circuit sooner. His view is that Showa designs the compression cicuit as it does to work with the soft springs, to prevent bottoming.

Shock:
Since I swapped the shock myself, I didn't learn much about the stock shock. I know the Penske (model 8983) came with a 900 pound spring and that it required slightly less preload to achieve 28mm sag than did the stock shock. It's considerably more compliant and (of course) the ride is very well-controlled.

Result:
I think the improvement in the shock is more significant than the improvement from re-valving and re-springing the forks, but both were well worth it. I hate a harsh ride! The cost of the fork work was $310; the cost of the shock was $795. Since I removed and re-installed both the forks and the shock, there was no labor charge.

[scratch]

On 2006-07-03 09:57, littlefield wrote:
Scratch,
Who did yours? I had mine done at Motorcycles Unlimited, he said Racetech didn't have a pre-engineered solution for the UDS 1050 forks (about 6 months ago) but they went back and forth a couple of times and got good results. $500 plus $800 something for an Ohlins rear.

Andy Marcer at Metric Motorcycles did the work on my bike. The conventional forks on the '04 model didn't present a problem for him except for some difficulty in pressing out a particular bushing. Andy had to machine a tool to do the job, but otherwise it looked pretty simple - well, for someone who has all the tools and knows what they're doing, anyway. :wink: I'm glad I didn't attempt the job myself. He tried to sell me on an Ohlins shock but I didn't want to go that far over budget, and I'm very happy with the results anyway.

Patrick is a good guy too, and he's worked on my bikes before. Just thought I'd give Andy a try this time since I've heard positive things about him.

[ This message was edited by: scratch on 2006-07-03 13:08 ]