wanted to try lowering the front end of my big bike for hill racing and it cant be done properly on my bike with the stock shocks. the whole purpose for lowering my front end is to help keep it from wheeling so bad off the line and if I just crank the stock shocks preload down to drop the front end the suspension just extends and once the stock shock are topped out the bike has so much upward momentum that the front end just picks on up. wondering if anyone has used another manufaturers shock on the front of the DS and how well it worked and how much it lowered the bike. I like the way the stock ds shocks preload is totally adjustable and would like to find something that adjusts this same way but will settle for just something shorter that will bolt right up. I can make some spring spacers if I have to on the lathe to help with preload issues and like the front shocks topped out but not to hard. if the front was topped out and much lower , at take off the bike would have to lift the entire front end off the ground right from the start without allowing the suspension to extend and weight to tranfer first and get upward momentum going before the extra weight of the wheels , brakes and other rotating suspended parts come into play. hoping this will help as I am taking off alot more agressively now and about 1 out of 5 passes has me standing strait up. any info on which stock honda yamaha suzuki or kawasaki shock have worked on the ds would help.

 

Give Marvin Shaw a call. I just got a full set of coilovers 1'' shorter. They will make them any length you want and the price is right. I save 12lbs of weight and they look awsome. The ride is better than stock IMO. Adjustable with nitrogen. For around 4 bills there a great deal. Picking up the front of the bike there's only about an inch of suspension before the tires come off the ground. I used to run the same way with the springs run all the way up to lower the front. Made a huge difference. The rear shock is great too, soaks up the whoops way better than the stocker. They come custom built for you and your bikes weight.

 

I know of guys who run Ski-Doo MXZ shocks on the front of there DS's by me they work good for ice racing , it drops the front end quite a bit. just a suggestion?

 

thanks guys, I ended up getting a nice set of triple rate Axis 400ex shocks from pipelayer and did some serious machine work on them and resprung them with early ds single rate springs. got it to do just what I wanted. brought the front end down considerably yet its still barely topped out without a person sitting on it. probably dropped 5 inches up front. should help me loads off the line and I can swap my regular shocks back in 5 minutes.

 

This probably won't do any good to say anything but I don't think you will like the characteristics of the bike to only lower the front and not the back. I have done this with 80 hp machines for the same reason and what happened was the front dug causing the rear tires to blow out badly for a fraction of a second (seemed like hours) before the front un-buried itself........then the front still came up as hard as ever. That was my experience.

The worst thing will be in the event you do have a whopper of a wheelie at 75 mph. With 320 hp on tapp, it will happen. you can only compensate for short travel so much with valving and high spring rate when you have a 220 lb motor and a +10 swing arm. I am afraid you will bottom out your fronts big time and hurt yourself.

The other concern would be bottoming out on the deep whoops at the bottom of most race hills. I almost got killed that way. If the whoops aren't too bad, a really good setup is the marvin shaws. lowered front and rear so that the A-arms are parrallel to the ground and the rear is lowered so that the frame is also parrallel to the ground. Make the rear shock stiffer than hell. I have seen guys cut 2 - 4 inches off their required swingarm length and get improved transfer with this setup and still keep the front end under control.

Good luck and be safe.

 

nut , because of some serious changes I did on this build my problem now isnt wheeling once Im on the hill, its right off the line. I moved alot of weight forward on this bike and stretched the front of the frame several inches which alows me to hold it wide open on the hill now where I couldnt on my last turbo bike. since I went to different tires I have super traction off the line and am just instantly and violently standing up. with the ds shocks cranked all the way up the front of the bike was so high that it was(to tired to think of the word) over center and stood up to easily. if I cranked the shocks down to where the bike was not "over center" the bike would start and upward motion before it had to pick up the tires , wheels , brakes and once the shocks topped there was already so much momentum that the front end just kept on going up. dont think these will bottom out as I have them set up topped out with heavy factory ds springs and 1 1/2 inch spacers which I had to press on on top of them. you will have to see my situation to understand. the over all length of the axis shocks Im now using is several inches shorter . should be a problem and if it is I will have my stock ds shocks with me. I did some testing before I changed shocks too. I adjusted the stock ds shocks way down and installed steel restraining cables around the entire shock so that no matter what they couldnt extend all the way. it seemed to help loads but after a few passes the cable clamps started slipping.

 

Good luck. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

please keep in mind this aint my first rodeo, Ive been doing these conversions since the 80's .LOL. thanks though for your concern