My girlfriend and I are getting in to ATV riding as a cheaper option (somewhat!) to my previous offroad racing / rock crawling hobby. Plus, its something we can do together. We both have some older machines we're working with for now and plan to upgrade in the next few years.

We did our first big trail ride this weekend (previously just played around at off-road parks, low speed stuff) and had a blast. She has a '93 Polaris 350L - rode fine over some of the 'washboard' sections of trail, while my '87 Big Bear 350 was decidedly *not* happy in the same areas. I know its a utility quad & not really made for 'go fast' stuff, but it was pretty bad. From going through shock/spring tuning on my race Cherokee, I know its way oversprung from the way it was handling (makes sense, its designed to be a hauler).

Question is - does anybody know if shocks from another model that's more 'sport' oriented either fit natively or can be made to fit? Fabbing up shock mounts / etc. is not a problem. I'm trying to stay on the cheap here, its not worth dumping tons of $$ on shocks on it. Alternatively - are there any model year design changes that would keep me from putting on a set of shocks from a newer model?