Shock factory 2Win Shocks

[YellowDuck]

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.

[Vagrant]

They sent a sheet with the adjustments / settingswith them. Keep it and don't waste your time changing them now because you will just have to change them back in 2000 miles when they break in.  They hit them right on the money.

[YellowDuck]

I did take a little preload out to get sag closer to 1/3 of travel, rather than 1/4.

After some brief testing, I ended up with the damping setting at 10/14.

I don't really notice any improvement over the stock shocks in terms of harshness over rough pavement.  But there is a massive improvement in stability in high speed corners.  All of the wallowing is gone.  Also noticeably less "interesting" in brake / throttle transitions and anything else that would normally upset the chassis.  I can ride it more like a sportbike now.

Fork cartridges this winter, and radial tires when it's time, and it should handle sweet. 

[YellowDuck]

Forgot to mention that I mounted them with the preload collar and damping adjuster up, even though the instructions indicated the other way.  I asked the guys in France if this was okay and they confirmed the shocks can be flipped.  I can actually reach back and adjust the damping at a stop light. 

[Vagrant]

Once broken in, you won't believe how much one click can make on the dampener. You can actually find perfection on these.

[aproud1]

They sent a sheet with the adjustments / settingswith them. Keep it and don't waste your time changing them now because you will just have to change them back in 2000 miles when they break in.  They hit them right on the money.

This is great advice. I adjusted mine and after a month or so, adjusted right back to where they told me I'd want them.

[YellowDuck]

I now have about 6000 km on these now, and have done lots of fiddling.

I have to say that I don't agree with some others that the as-delivered recommended settings are the best, once break-in is complete.  In my case I had to take out a fair bit of preload to prevent more than 1/3 of the shock travel from being unused under any conditions.  I settled on a pre-load setting that only has 3 threads showing above the collar.  For damping, I have backed all the way off to 4/14.  That creates a tiny bit of wallow but provides a lot of compliance, which is my primary objective for the way I use this bike.

No matter what kind of road surface I encounter, even really harsh bumps still never use all of the travel, despite my very minimal preload setting.  For me, this indicates that the shocks are oversprung for my use.  I contacted the guys in France to ask what rate spring they installed, and they told me 125 lb/inch.  I decided to order a set at 110 to see if that would help.

Kind of on expensive experiment.  The springs themselves are only EU$67 for the set, but shipping to Canada is EU$80 and then exchange is at 1.69 and there are input duties, taxes etc.  All in it is pretty close to CDN$300 to try some new springs.

Will report back how I get on.  To be clear, the shocks as they are with the current settings are perfectly acceptable, and better than stock I think.  I am just using the data and knowledge I have to try to optimize things.  It is clear that most of the remaining poor behavior is now coming from the forks, which I will also address soon.  It can be a bit deceptive, because even jolts through the front end are also felt through the seat, so it's sometimes easy to blame the shocks for things that they aren't responsible for.
   

[red stripeguz]

Interesting. It seems like Shock Factory has taken down the big notice re tariffs and fees being due

[YellowDuck]

Springs arrived Friday.  I installed them last night.

Pretty easy job, if you have any experience with such things.  The springs have almost 0 installed preload with the adjuster all the way out, so it's not hard to compress the spring enough by hand to expose the circlip that holds the spring perch.  First one took me a minute or three to change the spring; second one took 30 s.

I was reminded that the exhaust is in the way of the shock lower mounting screws, but discovered that if you just take the cans off their hangers, they will sag enough to allow access.  No need to actually loosen the clamps and such and remove the cans. 

I installed the shocks and set sag last night.  Test ride tomorrow.

The guys at Shock Factory in France are great.  Very responsive to emails, clear answers to questions, and if you say you want to order some parts they just make it happen.  No condescension or gate-keeping as you might experience from a certain North American distributor of their products.

[YellowDuck]

Happy to report that the 110 lb/inch springs did indeed improve the suspension.  As you'd expect I had to add a bit more preload to get sag in range.  Compliance has improved noticeably, which was my main objective.  I also ended up having to dial in a bit more damping (level 8 / 14 now) to calm down the extra suspension action with the lighter springs.  Still not anywhere near bottoming the shocks even over the nastiest bumps.  Really happy with it - I feel like this is about as good as I am going to get the rear working. 

This result is pretty typical in my experience.  For a bike used 100% on the street I usually favour a lighter spring rate than what the manufacturers provide, even though I weigh 200 lbs.  I think they choose springs to make sure they will be appropriate for two-up riding, but I almost never have a passenger so it's not a good compromise for me.  For track riding I think a heavier spring is more useful because you can run out of rear suspension range under heavy, sustained cornering loads - there is no way to counter that with damping settings, so a stiffer spring or piles of preload are your only options.  But on the street I am mostly just looking for the most compliance I can get without ever bottoming out, and of course then adequate damping of the rebound. 

I'd recommend these 2Win units but might suggest asking the supplier to choose spring rates on the lighter side of what they would normally spec for your weight, if like me you don't often carry a passenger.  Overall the build quality is really excellent - definitely better than YSS for example.  I especially like the adjustment knobs where the "clicks" are easily felt and don't seem like they will get harder to detect as the units age.