Received a set yesterday, and started installing on my 23 V7 Stone last night, when I was kinda tired.
It turns out, the shock mount retaining screws are installed with blue loctite and are made of cheese. I rounded out the lower left one. They can come out if you are competent and careful, but get that allen socket misaligned even for a second, and you are toast.
Anyway, found time to drill the screw out this morning (used a screw extractor), and shocks are mounted.
No time to ride it yet, All I know so far is:
1. They weigh 4.6 lbs each, compared to 6.8 for the stock ones. So, that's 1 kg less per side.
2. They have linear springs, sized for my weight. I haven't set sag yet, but on the stock shocks with the progressive springs I was using more than 1/3 of travel just in sag, even with preload set to the highest of 5 settings (I weigh 195). Never bottomed them out though (according to zip tie on the shaft), I guess because the high speed compression damping is so harsh.
3. The difference in rebound speed, just in a bounce test, is noticeably different between the lowest and highest damping setting. Not massively different, but noticeably. Hopefully my preferred setting is somewhere in the available range.
4. Also on a bounce test sitting on the bike, it now feels much more like my other two bikes that both have sorted suspension. Much more firm and less bouncy.
More info after I set sag, ride, and fiddle with the damping some more.
