DMr Front and Rear purchase/install review

So lets start off with myself. I am fairly younger what I think is well qualified mechanic. I have upgraded my old 75 goldwing suspension, then my CBR suspension, and recently on my own, the Grom to Ohlins, and the VFR to DMr. My biggest downfall is that I am an engineer and want things to be exactly perfect. I give my technicians the information they need and discuss with them thoroughly how to do it before a project. This is just my review of the install, hopefully it will help someone else make decisions on what they want and how they want to install it and prepare.

If you want to look at my past history, here are the threads for reference:

Anyone Heard from Jamie at DMr

DMr Rear Shock Pieces

Timeline:
First contacted Jamie Jan 22 2015.
Order tried to put in March 25th
Was told rear shock was ready May 9
Invoiced June 6th
Paid June 8th
Received June 23rd without rear shock upper mount (He forgot to ship)
Received rear upper shock mount ~July 1
Installed rear shock Aug 1
Installed front suspension Aug 7-10

Have not ridden it yet. Still sorting stuff out and installing other things (helibars, electrical stuff, grip heaters). Took long time to install due to wedding, and personal things.

Rear shock:

Things you are going to want on had:
New front header copper gaskets (2)
New rear small exhaust gaskets (2)
New muffler gasket (1)

I received this with the correct spring, 1200 in/lbs. It looks short, since it has the huge spacer built into it. The shock was overall more dirty than I would expect. Not sure the condition of the shock prior to DMr working on it. The lower bearing was ok, but, pretty worn, indents on the inner bearing race and some rust indicated it was pretty old as seen in photo 1. I replaced this. It would have worked, I agree, but if I am spending a day installing this thing, I want it to work correctly for a LONG time.

The upper mount bolt head was too tall, I could not attach it to the shock. The bolt would not thread in to the opposite side. I ended up grinding away 1/3 of the head to install it correctly. Make sure there is space between the bolt head and the shock. Otherwise you could have hard fouling metal to metal during hard jolts that the rubber insert should take up.

Take a look at the photo showing the old versus new, how much longer the old spring is (and it is under full compression adjustment).



Once installed the of the rear of the reservoir was found to be attached in such a way that it was impossible to have a clean mount on the frame. This drove me bonkers. Also, where the hose comes out the top of the shock, it fouls the plastic on the underside of the seat. Not cool. The bike is currently at Evolution motorsports in Santa Clara having the hose removed and lengthened for a good shock placement. More to come.



Front Suspension:

This is going to be a long one, so settle in with that cup of coffee. Manufacturing was well done. Very nice stuff. But the instructions were incomplete.

Things needed:
2 quarts of Honda 5W shock oil. Not one like it says in his instructions. (Honda Fork Oil Photo)
You might want to replace the crush washers, dust seals, and fork seal while doing this. Not hard at all. My bike only has 10k miles on it and the dust seals were cracked.
Get a 100cc syringe to measure the fluid out. Trust me, this will make life easier.
Buy a 6mm craftsmen allen and cut off the short part of the L.
Write all torque specifications in the DMr instructions prior to work. This would have saved me a TON of time.

Prior to removing the forks while dis-assembly is happening, leave the lower fork bolts tight and loosen the fork caps. This way if you don't have a vice (like me) you can remove the fork caps by hand later without a vice. Just loosen though! Do not remove. Oh man, that would be bad.

Once the congolmeration is removed that is the forks. You end up with a floating cow like this:



Start with having a vice or something to hold the shocks while you work on them. This will help so they don't tip over and spill oil all over your sneakers and make the wife angry. But, let remove the lower bolt. Definitely use an impact to remove this. I didn't even attempt to do it by hand because of past experiences where once it's slightly loose and spins freely, it takes an act of god to get the insides to seat so you can remove the bolt the rest of the way.

I will skip ahead because DMr instructions are complete there. When you are draining the shocks though, there is a lot more fluid than anticipated. A little over 2 quarts.

Between DMr step 9 and 10, something fairly important is missing. This piece shown below is stuck onto the damper assembly. I finally learned from one shop how to remove it. This bottoming out cone has a suction seal to the damper assembly. It needs to be heated up, then you can take a wrench that fits around the tube (I used a 15/16" wrench) to push it off. Do not touch it or the damper assembly if you have heated it. Also, I used a heat gun, it does not need a torch. DO NOT USE A TORCH! Oil and fire do not mix.



After that you have access to the retainer ring and the assembly falls apart.

Now for installation, I used Vaseline on all o-ring assemblies, DMr recommends grease. The instructions again are complete up until step 21. When sliding the cartridge assembly into the fork tube, you want to pull the damper rod ALL the way out. If you have sausage fingers like me, this will make your life easier. Then lay the assembly horizontal to 20 degrees from horizontal. Then push in the rebound adjustment needle and spring using the rebound adjustment rod. This will keep the spring and needle from being offset or crooked in the tube. Once installed hold the forks vertical in your magical vice and continue working.

Filling oil. DMr estimates quantity to fill the forks to the 130mm ±5mm depth are off by quite a bit. I filled both of mine to 510cc and it matched up perfectly. DMr estimates 350-400cc's. This made me a bit angry, since I needed more oil on a Sunday and the shops were closed. I also used the old damping rod shown below with tape to correctly mark the 130mm. The lower part of the tape was my mark, upper, top of tube, lower, 130mm down. I gave it 5 extra mm to account for the volume of the rod.



Now when you are filling the void with oil and pumping it into the damper assembly. Hold that adjustment rod in place. I about shot my rod and needle across the garage. Luckily I did not lose the needle or spring. So hold your hand over it while pumping. :cower:

The rest is straight forward in his instructions. I will update this after I ride it for a long distance.

Again, I hope this suspension is worth it. Dear baby mother of Jesus it has been a long road and is still continuing.

Jamie on the other hand has been very very very patient with me and answers all of my questions.

 

That's a good write up North.

Regarding the installation of a non-VFR shock into a VFR, I think you have to accept a few compromises. If you had the big $, a bespoke Ohlins or Penske would be a better fit, but for the price DMr charge I personally was happy to accept a few imperfections that (IMO) won't affect the outcome. On my 5th gen the reservoir lightly fouls the underside of the electrical tray and that bugged me for a while but I got over it, subsequent inspection shows that nothing bad is happening.

You are also getting a used, refurbished shock, so some previous wear and tear is inevitable. My DMr shock seal failed after 10,000km, Jamie was good enough to supply replacement parts FOC, but I still had to pay a local guy to rebuild the shock. On the upside, you are also getting a shock tailored to your weight which you won't always find with any other brand.

Regarding the fork rebuild I do things slightly differently when it comes to priming the cartridge. I use a 100mm long bolt the same diameter as the damper rod, and use the locknut to connect the bolt to the damper rod. This does two things, it makes it easy to grab and pump the rod fully, and it also stops oil shooting every which way. Once you've got the cartridge primed and the level where you want it, the springs and spacer and washers go on under the locknut, then I slip the bolt out and insert the needle/cap.

Lately I bought myself a used Ohlins shock for my VTR1000F, while it looked OK there was an obvious clunk when it was in use. By the time I replaced the top and bottom ball joints, the bushing, piston ring ad assorted other seals, paid for labour oil and gas, plus the original shock (which looked cheap!) I am up for 50% more than I could have got a shock from Jamie. So you pays your money....

 

I'm not questioning your comments or capabilities North - it's a great write up, and I am grateful for it. It's worth mentioning, however, that Jamie may have written the instructions for professional mechanics and made certain assumptions that mechanics make, and that engineers don't =). I recently had the front and back suspension replaced with Jamie's, and the shop did it in about 7 hours - precisely what they estimated. The only noteworthy problem they seemed fit to mention was that the mechanic (certified Honda master mechanic with 15 years xp split between Honda and BMW) didn't think it was necessary to use the weight of fork oil Jamie recommended. I'm going to post a review of the suspension as well, but wanted to wait until I'd had it tuned by a pro.

 

If I am not mistaken, JD recommends that oil and viscosity, as that's what he normally uses and what is used in his valving and shim stack configuration. At least this is what I derived from my conversation with him when I did my first suspension upgrade with him.

 

Yea, if I would have had a shop around me I could have completed this super fast. I did not have the seals, nor all the fluid, as I stated above. I have 10 years experience of wrenching on my motorcycles (8 total and a bunch of friends). I live in a sh*tty apt in the bay area with a tiny garage. If I have to do major overhauls I take it into work.

The weight of the oil, I wondered the same. Honda recommended 10W. I went with Jamie's 5W because it was his design. And why question that? Again, I will see how it work when I ride it.

 

I agree with his approach of using the lightest oil you can and then building the stacks to suit that weight of oil. My experience is that the 5W is better when quick response of the rebound circuit is required to keep the front planted in a rapid succession of bumps.. it also doesnt make the front feel like it's skipping when you encounter ripples in a corner. The use of lighter weight oil and heavier springs keeps the forks higher up in the stroke and allows them to be more responsive when high speed damping is required....hard to do if you can't individually adjust each circuit separately.

 

THis is basically what the mechanic said, but he also claimed that if it was his bike, he would only bother with 5W if he was going to be doing track riding. Ultimately there were was a problem getting some 5W fork oil quickly, and we went with 10. I plan on having it replaced sometime, but in the interim am hoping the mechanic was right and that it will be fine since I never plan to do track days on my VFR.

 

Well here we go. Just got the bike back Friday from Evolution Motorsports. They did a wonderful job. Granted, if I would have known they HAD to remove my shock I would have removed it to save money. They removed it, made the line longer and mounted the shock for me. It cost quite a bit, but it will work great. The hangar used is a McMaster-Carr Vibration Damping Clamping Hangar 1-15/16". PN 2615T17. Highly recommend.



I just finished installing the VFRness and accessory kit. Then I did the heated grips, USB port, and the atlas throttle lock. Now I need to finish the Galfer SS brake lines. Then its time for a good long ride.

 

Update:

If you take the rear shock to another shop to get a hose made like mine. Jamies uses Silkolene Pro RSF 5W and charges the rear shock to 190-200psi. Evolution used Ohlins, it is the same weight but does not have the durability of Silkolene, Silkolene flush interval is 20k miles, Ohlins he recommends 7k. Interesting. Also, the overall line length was 9inches. At least that was it says on my receipt from Evolution.

Still installing Galfer Brake Lines and Pads. I hope in the next week I will be able actually ride this thing.