[icantdrive75]

What I'm hearing from my friends who don't own EX-500's, is that you can take pretty much a rear shock off any bike you want to, stare at it for a second, and it'll make itself fit. Probably even install itself. So what really works? What kind of modification is necessary to make it work?

 

[fog]

Well your friends are over simplfying a bit. Actually the shock isn't as much of a problem as the spring. most any shock that dosn't have a piggyback resivoir can be fitted. Now getting a spring of the right stregnth,and size to fit that shock and the bike.is a lot more difficult.
The Ex spring is rather small in diameter and fairly long. and weak. Most other bikes use shorter fatter springs of a much higher rate.

There are two good after market shocks out there for 300+ and 700 plus.The Works Preformance and the Penske. There are a number of stories floating around from people that have fitted various Suzuki GSXR shocks , but I never heard how they worked out. The mechanical advavtage of the EX linkage is vastly diffrent than many other bikes and as a result the springs from many other bikes are no good.

As a racer I never saw anybody go fast without a Penske shock. That may mean somthing or not.

FOG

 

[maverick9611]

which proves one thing FOG, "if ya gonna play, ya gotta pay!!!"
i learned that in drag racing real quick!!

 

[OreoGaborio]

Yeah i wouldn't really risk putting a shock on the bike that wasn't set-up specifically for an EX500. This question gets brought up alot on a local forum i'm a member of and we've got our own suspension specialist that owns a GMD Computrack shop. He pretty much tells everyone that asks "Can i put a shock from this bike on my bike" that it's a waste of time and money to do so and get it set up properly.

With that said, I have an Ohlins on my EX... and i'm pretty sure it's from a GSXR, soooo I shouldn't really talk But, it has been re-sprung and re-valved to work by that very suspension specialist guy I mentioned above and i'm W/in 4-5 seconds of the top experts, so I'd say it works pretty good.

 

[McBiggity]

and i just happen to have a works performance shock for sale in the classified section here.

 

[icantdrive75]

and i just happen to have a works performance shock for sale in the classified section here.

How convenient....

 

[luke]

I posed a question in the other thread about the front suspension and I think I have something relevant to offer this one. I'm 5'9", 150 lbs. I don't really intend to race on a track in any serious manner. I guess if there was an open track day or something where I didn't have to do all kinds of stuff to the bike to prep it and keep the same set of tires on it I might see if I couldn't take a couple laps, but other than that, I'm not all that interested. I'll save the racing for the rm 125 next summer. but anyway, given my body size, and given the kind of riding I want to do, do I stand anything to gain from upgrading the rear shock?
I'm planning on dropping a little weight, and I think the basic consensus is that thats the easiest way to speed up the 500. that sounds like the makings of a great response to newbs. How can I make my 500 go faster? Atkins, ya lardass.
thoughts?

 

[icantdrive75]

I've got some advice. If you're trying atkins, take a fiber suplement. All that protein is hell on your colon.