Shocking!

I generally upgrade the suspension on all my bikes since I do ride pretty aggressively and I know what a difference good suspension can make. Problem is, it doesn't come cheap...usually. Sometimes I get lucky and find a deal. When I do, I usually jump on it. That was the case last week. I happened upon an Ebay ad for a Penske 8975 shock for a VFR12. The seller claimed he custom ordered and bought it new from GMD Computrak in Atlanta, but sold the bike before installing it. Some searching online showed that the 8975 is Penske's newest motorcycle shock, getting very good reviews from racers and street riders alike, and retails for $695. Starting bid was $400 and buy-it-now was $600. I don't know how it happened, but nobody else bid on it besides me. I scored it for $400 + $20 shipping. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. The Fedex guy dropped it off here Yesterday, and as promised by the seller, it appears to have never been installed and is in new condition. Here's the new springy-thing.



It uses an internal reservoir, nitrogen charged, and adjustable for preload, compression, and rebound damping. But I tell you, looking closely at the bike, that top shock bolt sure doesn't look like any fun to get out. Let's just say I'm not going to start tearing into it without at least a couple hours on my hands. I'm going to replace the fork springs sometime soon as well. Anxious to try it out soon and see how it feels compared to the stocker. I'll report on it once it's installed and I get some seat time with it.

Side note: I guess I'm going to be the guinnea pig on the Vstream windshield. Mine should be here by the weekend. I'll report on that too.

 

Motorcycle - 8975 Series check this web page says that 8975 is designed for drag racing apps.....

 

Or you can check this webpage 8975 Website Photo / 2012 Penske Shock Pricing | Trackside Suspension & Engineering and see that it's offered in street or drag versions, as well as a street version without compression damping adjustment for $200 less. It was originally designed for dragrace applications, but they custom build every shock to your needs/specs. Penske's website isn't very up-to-date.

Edit: Try searching for Penske 8975db

 

Nice score there Dave.......Have fun with the mod

 

Doesn't look like it's gonna be much fun to install, but it's mine now for better or worse. Maybe I'll get lucky and it won't be as bad as it looks.

 

nice score. Please let us know what you think once you get it mounted.

 

I was watching, and wanting, that shock but just couldn't pull the trigger. I also was surprized that no one else bidded. And that was the second time he listed it. Obviously no one bid the first time. Nice buy!

Please let us know about the install and how it performs. Maybe spring next year I can upgrade the suspension.

 

If you were closer I would bring a twelve pack and help you wrenching.....

 

Thanks for the offer, but wrenching is what I do for a living. But I have a Kegerator full of Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. Come on out and I'll tap you a cold one and you can watch me wrangle that sucker outta there. The top bolt looks to be the only real issue. If I can get that out of there, I'm golden. I also need to make a tool for damping adjustment. Really surprised it didn't come with one. Basically, I just need to take a 5/32nd allen wrench and grind the long end down to a small pick. The compression adjuster needs the allen wrench and the rebound adjuster needs the pick. I just hate to trash one of my good allen wrenches for something extremely light duty/light use like this, so I'll probably go buy a cheap allen wrench set at Harbor freight and cut it up. It really should come with one, but Penske says "yeah, sorry." Oh well, no complaints here for what I paid for it.

I also had to re-clock it when I got it, that is, I had to turn one end of the shock 180*. Otherwise I would have only been able to get to one damping adjuster or the other once installed, now I can get to both. Only took a minute. No problemo.

 

Dave I have seen your garage and very impress :thumbsup: I was just trying to give you some motivation. I do wish I live close by so I can come and keep your company and drink those tasty beer ............:drinkers:

 

Well, it took me two weekends to finally get my new Penske shock installed. That top mount was eluding me. On most bikes, you'd pull the through-bolt out of the clevis to remove the shock. Not here, as the bolt hits the frame before it will come all the way out. Here you remove the whole clevis from the frame and THEN pull the bolt out! Honestly didn't see that coming. Once you pull the tank off, the nut holding the clevis to the frame is right there. It's the big nut in the middle next to that batch of ground wires.



Once you remove that nut, the whole clevis and shock come out of the frame together. Here I've removed the charcoal canister to get a better look, but it wasn't necessary.



Of course all the rising rate linkage needs to come out of the way.





The rest is a breeze. I ground down a Snap-on hex key to make a damping adjusting tool since Penske doesn't see fit to provide one. The hex end adjusts compression damping.



The pointy end adjusts rebound damping.



And now it's in there and all my adjusters are accessible.





I'll start working on setup Monday or Tuesday when time permits, then report on how it rides once I start to get it dialed in.

 

Well, I pulled the bike in the shop on my lunch break on Tuesday and checked/set sag front and rear. Imagine my surprise when rear sag was spot on! No wonder it felt so much better right out of the box. Since it felt a bit harsh to me, I backed off the compression damping 3 clicks. Even though I'd checked the front sag months ago when I got the bike, I decided to check again, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. No I wasn't. Even with front spring preload cranked to the max, front sag is too much even without me on the bike, and just the weight of the bike on the suspension. WTF was Honda thinking when they chose the spring rates?? Since the stock Bridgestones are awful and so are the front springs, and the shock setup is so close already, there's no point in me fiddling adjusters anymore. At least not until I fit a set of PR3s and some Ohlins front springs, all of which should happen this winter. The shock is a huge improvement, and I feel lucky that no one else bid against me and I got it so ridiculously cheap. Now if I can find those fork springs the same way, I'll be all wiggles and giggles. :biggrin:

 

Jezus, Dave...doesn't it ever rain in OH? Those linkage bolts are meant to rust! Or is that only here?

Congrats on the purchase and fine results. My dealer has Wilbers front and rear on his'. Since the Triumph Tiger, front springs are on my list but I can remember the hassle of doing it solo and making my own tools for it so it'll be on the back burner for a while.

For now, I'm in the process of 'butchering' the power supply behind the LH fairing for gloves and seat heating. Sorry but I don't do this for a living so I have no fancy fitting connectors lying around. Just the soldering iron. :wink:

And the bike's gotta be back on the road tomorrow for commuting so no time to mess about for too long.

 

I've got three things on my side here. 1) The Pyramid Plastics hugger does a fantastic job of keeping muck off all the rear suspension, both above and below the swingarm...one of the many reasons I picked it. 2) I'm pretty obsessive/compulsive when it comes to washing my bike. Anything I can reach gets washed and dried. This helps a lot! 3) It's generally not the "rain" that makes everything corrode, it's other muck that the rain carries up off the road and covers your bike with a nice corrosive film. Once they salt the roads around here when we're getting ice or snow, it stays in the garage until we get enough "rain" to wash the bad stuff off the roads. I don't care how cold it is outside, I'll ride as long as there's no salt out. The bike is never the same once it's been out in the salt. I've learned that the hard way. Horrible stuff!

Don't take that "butchering" thing too harshly. Again, due to my O/C nature, I have a hard time bringing myself to make any mods that I can't easily put back to stock without leaving a trace. If I have to drill a hole in a part, I always try to drill a CHEAP part, so I can easily replace it. Do what you have to do, just make sure to use some heat-shrink tubing or silicone tape around those solder joints. I hear they have lots of corrosive stuff on the roads in Belgium. :wink:

 

Double heat shrink & tape, sorted. Also Vaseline that protects those metal ground connections.
I'm as O/C as the next guy, I just don't have the luxury of another vehicle so the bike gets washed rarely and I'm trading her in after tax write-off. That's another 3 years from now.

I took the 'butchering' thing seriously as I've spent 5 months on a butchered Tuono. They had even sawn fuse boxes in half and squeezed them into the chassis! So I literally took every spade out of every connector and soldered them before putting them back in. Most had turned green.
I rode my Futura that winter. By the time the Tuono was roadworthy you could just drop it in the ocean, let it dry and it would fire right up. So to speak. Never did that of course.

 

Noooooooo...not Vaseline! Never use Vaseline on those type of connections. After repeated heating and cooling cycles it will eventually become an insulator. I warned a friend not to use it on his battery cables but he didn't listen. Then one day I get a phone call that his car won't start. Cleaned off the vaseline with solvent and a wire brush and all was well again. Use dielectric grease that's specifically made for that, or white lithium in a pinch.

 

Okay dielectric grease it is. Funny, Vaseline has always served me well to protect starter motor connections.
But I would be a fool not to listen to someone with that much experience so I will do as told Dave, thanks for the heads-up!

Anyone want to buy a kilo of Vaseline? :wink: