A visit to KFG Racing (new owner of GP Suspension)

Auburn and I went over to KFG to check it out and drop off our shocks for service for the current group buy (my Ohlins and Auburn's Penske), but also to see if things were as up to snuff as they were at GP Suspension. While we there, we met Barry, the owner, his staff, and checked out the shop. As with my visit to GP a few years back, I came away impressed with KFG.

Like GP, KFG has its shop in a non-descript industrial area, just outside downtown Auburn WA.



KFG was originally focused on the racing customer, but has since broadened out to cover a wide range of bikes, without losing its racing roots.



Barry's wife April mans the front desk and phone.



The shop is nice and tidy. Your front forks are labeled when checked in, and placed on the rack for service. Elsewhere, the working area is clean and organized.









They use a proprietary tool from Ohlins to service the Ohlins shocks.





KFG has a very strong reputation amongst the racing crowd, given Barry's race history, and the shop had a number of bikes waiting for their upgrades.





Barry works with Dave (former owner of GP) to keep the FJR supplies fully stocked.







It looks like Barry had a pretty successful racing career, as the shop was littered with various trophies too.



While we there, Barry showed us some improvements GP has made to their suspension kit recently: a longer delrin rod that helps keep the spring from flexing sideways under hard loads. The prior kit had delrin "washers" at the end of each spring, but the new kits include the rods. I picked up a set for my front forks, about $18.



We talked about the GEN III. Barry has some ideas about tackling this, including using an Ohlins front cartridge and some new tops to enable adjustment on both forks (instead of just the one that the factory setup enables). Fairlaner????

We also met his team, and were impressed that their average years of experience was 10+ years or more, working with race teams and other equipment manufacturers. We also talked about some of the teething challenges of bringing on the FJR community, who know their bikes, are very technical. Barry's really excited about the expansion of his services, and will likely make a guest appearance at one of the upcoming tech days to talk about the GP upgrades and provide suspension adjustment tips.

Afterward, we headed back to Auburn's shop, and I learned how to do the front fork service. If you have the right parts and experience, it is surprisingly easy DIY (like most projects on the FJR). Next week, the shock will come back and we'll finish up the service. Mine is getting a new spring as the original was undersprung.

Nice report Hudson. Sounds like you and Auburn let KFG know what they're getting into with the FJR community.

Good looking shop, GP set the bar high and time will tell if KFG will live up to our expectations.

--G

KFG installed my GP/Penske set-up. All I did was bring the bike down and they did the rest. I had 30k miles on my 09 and the suspension was shot. The GP/Penske set up is outstanding as is the work done by KFG. I am in on the group buy this year for a suspension service so count me in as a satisfied return customer.

Great writeup Dave, I will need to get me a couple sets of the new guides for the R6 and FJR

escapefjrtist said:

Nice report Hudson. Sounds like you and Auburn let KFG know what they're getting into with the FJR community.
Good looking shop, GP set the bar high and time will tell if KFG will live up to our expectations.

--G

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KFG already knew about the forum. They talk with Dave at least 4-5 times a week. Dave and Barry have been friends for many years.

One thing Barry talked about was how often to service the rear shocks.

Two reasons for the service interval. First that the oil is corrosive on the shim stack. He said the Dave would put a set of shims in a cup of shock oil and let it sit for year. He said you would be surprised how many different oils would show corrosion on the shims.

Second is the gets for lack of a better word "funky". Meaning it loses its properties, gets cloudy and smells real bad. I remember this when I had my ohlins shock on my gas gas serviced. I bought the bike used and the shock had never been done. The smell was unbelievable and the oil was very cloudy. He recommends having the rear shock serviced once a year and/or about 10,000 miles. Otherwise you risk damage to the shim stack. He said to go in and replace the shims cost about another $150 depending on the shock. I will end up pushing the miles between services, but I will have mine serviced each year now. While we were there a dirt bike rider dropped off his forks and shock for service.

It was obvious he has been having Barry service dirt bikes for years.

Another thing that Barry talked about was oil viscosity. He said that the lighter the oil the more consistent the operating properties. He went on to explain that as the oil goes through the heat cycle the shock (and forks) performance does not change as much as with higher visocity oils.

To to Dave's post, the mechanics working for Barry have worked for several race teams (these are the ones I could remember) Vance & Hines, Muzzy's, Yoshamira and other teams.

AuburnFJR said:

He recommends having the rear shock serviced once a year and/or about 10,000 miles.

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You got to be kidding me!!! If I had to service an aftermarket shock every 10,000 miles I wouldn't buy one! I would keep the stock shock.

SkooterG said:

AuburnFJR said:

He recommends having the rear shock serviced once a year and/or about 10,000 miles.

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You got to be kidding me!!! If I had to service an aftermarket shock every 10,000 miles I wouldn't buy one! I would keep the stock shock.

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Whatever. The stock shock is a POS. (Prior to 2013 - jury is out on 2013 still) The stock shock does not even being to perform anywhere near as well as the aftermarket shocks available, IMO.

Just passing along what Barry has seen from his experience when they take a shocks apart. From my experience since I put a Penske on my bike, I allowed my shock to get more miles on it that I wanted because I lost track of how many miles were acutually on it. As a result I did get a significant drop off in performance when it had about 20,000 miles on it. It was very noticiable and it was not due to blowing a seal or anything that failed other than having too many miles on it between service intervals. Dave recommended about 18-20,000 miles when I bought my shock and I was above that by a few thousand miles. Totally my fault.

I think that Barry's point was more to make sure you do service it once a year at least and if you start to get excessive miles in a year probably approaching the 18-20,000 miles that Dave recommended, then you might want to do it more often.

The question is how much performance loss are you willing to put up with? I guess riding interstates and looking to pound out the miles your acceptable performance level is different than the level I want riding the twisties and avoiding the intersates as much as I can pushing the limits of the bike.

The amount of corrsion and oil degradation depends on the oil used. Barry did make a point about the oil they currently use, that the Maxima and Silkolene (and formerly used Motroex) did not have as much corrosion after the shims were left sitting in the oil after a year as many other name brands do. At least it was minimal enough that it did not require rebuilding the shim stacks and replacing some of the shims. He also said the price difference between Maxima and Slikolene was quite a bit and the difference in performance did not justify the higher price of Silkolene. He said unless you are racing at a top level most riders would not be able to tell the difference between the two oils.

Barry said there is a price to be paid and it comes from corrosion that happens from the oil. The oil does break down over time and miles and the performance of the shock does degrade and can damage the shim stack. The question is how much are you willing to put up with? I guess riding intersates and looking to pound out miles the performance level you want for the shock is different the the level I am looking for riding the twisties as much as I can.

Personally, I would never own a bike that you have previously owned because you have professed over the years about how far you stretch the maintenance intervals. I don't necessarily go with mother Yammies intervals on everything either. IMHO, you have been mostly lucky in the longevity of you have gotten out of some of your other bikes.

One other interesting thing that Barry talked about was the reasons for switching from Motorex to Maxima. Barry explained the switch from Motorex was due to not being able to get it in bulk anymore. They (Barry and Dave at GP) used to buy it in 55 gallons drums. Motorex stopped selling in bulk containers and only sold in quart bottles. Barry said they would overflow a dumster in a week with the number of shocks and forks they do. Dave (and Barry) switched to Maxima a couple of years ago to be able to buy in bulk.

To wrap it up, I know that I will not get to 20,000 miles a year normally, but I will follow Barry's recommendation to have my shock serviced once a year. I will pull my forks after 10,000 miles (if I exceed that in a year) and will change the fliud. I will rebuild them each year beacuse of the wear on the bushings which I can do myself.

As you said..... whatever.

I wasn't attacking you, just the fucked up 10k rebuild recommendation. So not sure why you felt it necessary to attack me?

Riding 40k+ miles per year, there is no way I would put up with the cost and hassle of rebuilding a pricey custom shock four times a year. I would keep the stocker. Not everyone is at your level of anal-retentiveness when it comes to needing a perfectly performing suspension. I don't race my FJR and need to shave tenths of seconds off my lap time. Mi bastard step-pappy has 58k miles on his 03 stock shock and he is no lightweight. And while I have begged him many a times to upgrade, he seems to be happy with what he has.

No doubt there is degradation over the miles that I don't notice as it is gradual. I will say that the Wilbers shock and Traxxion forks on my 04 FJR are WAY overdue for servicing but they still feel good to me and at peg scraping lean angles it still fees completely planted. Guess I am just not that anal-retentive. Oh, and lucky. Can't forget lucky.

Yes I did take it as a personal attack. And I did attack back for shooting the messenger by quoting one line from my post. You could have made your point simply saying that it seems to be too often to you and I would not have taken it as an attack.

Intended or not you have a way of attacking when you do not agree with the opinion or in this case the experience from a person who's business is suspension. What is your experience rebuilding shocks? Without personally know, I'm going go on a small limb and say it is little to none.

All I did was pass on information by a person who is an expert giving his recommendation based on what he has seen in the many hundreds or thousands of shocks he has rebuilt.

Granted, KFG Racing is a race shop and they are recommending what needs to be done for people who try to get the most performance from their equipment and are trying to give us a service interval that can go up or down by how you ride. The wild card is how does each rider ride. And being asked to give a recommendation that really is an unfair situation to put them in. IF they know how you tend to ride then they can give a more accurate recommendation of how long to go between service intervals. They could also fine tune that recommendation once they take your shock apart and see what the internals look like.

Right or wrong people watch what you say and use that to make decisions about how they should service their bikes because you are in the position of being an admin. And right or wrong, there are people out there that are going to generalize what you say to mean they should not buy and after market shock when they really should get one because they are trying to ride beyond the capabilities of what their bike is currently capable of doing because they have suspension that is not up to the task.

Now that I know you were not attacking, no offense taken.

Count me in thec1x/year camp.

To save $$$ I'm looking into what tools are needed for shock servicing. The forks are easy enough.

dcarver said:

Count me in thec1x/year camp. To save $$$ I'm looking into what tools are needed for shock servicing. The forks are easy enough.

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Okay, now I'm really interested as well.

I've pushed the miles on my 8983 (20,000) and have started to notice a change in feel. Some of which is the tires I'm trying to wear off and toss (Avon Storm 2). Actually not sure how much of which is at fault.

Either way, once a year or every 10,000 miles means I need to learn how to service my own shock! One selling point was that they were customer rebuildable.

AuburnFJR said:

One thing Barry talked about was how often to service the rear shocks.

Two reasons for the service interval. First that the oil is corrosive on the shim stack. He said the Dave would put a set of shims in a cup of shock oil and let it sit for year. He said you would be surprised how many different oils would show corrosion on the shims.

Second is the gets for lack of a better word "funky". Meaning it loses its properties, gets cloudy and smells real bad. I remember this when I had my ohlins shock on my gas gas serviced. I bought the bike used and the shock had never been done. The smell was unbelievable and the oil was very cloudy. He recommends having the rear shock serviced once a year and/or about 10,000 miles. Otherwise you risk damage to the shim stack. He said to go in and replace the shims cost about another $150 depending on the shock. I will end up pushing the miles between services, but I will have mine serviced each year now. While we were there a dirt bike rider dropped off his forks and shock for service..

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I want to clarify that I am not shooting the messenger .......and I am not disputing the message.....but I am really surprised at the recommended 10,000 mile service interval and that the oil is corrosive to the shim stacks, especially when most of the quality fork oils claim to have additives to prevent corrosion. If that is the case, I am surprised that the OEM shocks that never get serviced can continue to work (at all) year after year. I certainly agree that service life is probably a function of riding style, temperatures, roads, and other factors and may vary quite a bit from rider to rider so it will be interesting to see what Barry finds when he services some FJR shocks from different parts of the US....and I hope he gives feedback to the owners so they can share that feedback and how many miles they had ridden before the shock was serviced.

AuburnFJR said:

Yes I did take it as a personal attack. And I did attack back for shooting the messenger by quoting one line from my post. You could have made your point simply saying that it seems to be too often to you and I would not have taken it as an attack.

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Sorry. Didn't mean it as one. I make my points the way I do it. I really didn't think you would have taken it as an attack on you, the messenger. Sorry.

AuburnFJR said:

Intended or not you have a way of attacking when you do not agree with the opinion or in this case the experience from a person who's business is suspension. What is your experience rebuilding shocks? Without personally know, I'm going go on a small limb and say it is little to none.

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I am who I am. I am here to have fun, learn some things, and hopefully help others. I would like to think that on the forum I am the helpful, sarcastic smart-ass. I realize others probably think like you, but I can't please all the people all the time. In the end, everyone should remember this is the freaking internet and not to take things (or anyone) too seriously. Word.

And you are correct that I have *zero* experience rebuilding shocks. However I am not completely stupid in these matters. Over the years, I have learned much from smarter folks than I here on the forum, and also from conversations with 'experts' or 'gurus' from several different highly regarded suspension shops, and even an Ohlins tech. And I have NEVER seen a 10k service recommendation. I have seen 20k, and 30k, but not a 10k. My local suspension guru knows me all too well and told me he wished I would bring my shock in after 30k miles, but knows I won't and made me promise to wait no more than 50k miles. (And I am currently past that and not riding that FJR) Is the shock's performance degraded at 50k miles? I am sure it is, but it is still acceptable to me. I am not blessed like you and live in an area where I rarely have to travel straight roads. My FJR is my SUV. It does everything: commuting, grocery shopping, day trips, extended touring, occasional two-up riding, and yes, even spirited and aggressive riding on twisties despite your initial assumption. So I don't need a suspension built or set-up for finely-tuned, narrow set of parameters. I need/want one that is set-up for everything. But that also doesn't mean I don't get benefit.

See, the thing that I have learned is that motorcycle suspension is half science, and half art. Sure would be nice if it was all science, but that is not the case. Most of the suspension gurus I have talked to have different, and at times very contradictory philosophies on how to build, set-up, and service a shock and forks. It's kind of like all the religions - they can't all be right! Yet these varying philosophies come from gurus at highly regarded suspension shops. So as the end user who does NOT know a whole lot about this, and has very little experience in this area, it's my job to listen to them all, try to figure out what makes the most sense for me, and proceed accordingly. Not an easy task. I just try to be happy with the end result. So far so good. As much as I can tell as I am not a racer and the most sophisticated, but I am getting better!

I am sure Dave at KFC is an extremely knowledgeable and competent suspension guy. He seems to have a lot of fans. But he is just once source of many. And I am not a racer and do not need a suspension set up to be competitive on a racetrack. As with everyone on this forum, there is a point of 'good enough' that is frequently stipulated by price considerations. And to me, not only is a 10k rebuild schedule ridiculously unnecessary based on recommendations from other 'gurus' and my own experience, but also cost prohibitive for the miles I ride. For a track, or race bike, I would most likely feel differently.

AuburnFJR said:

All I did was pass on information by a person who is an expert giving his recommendation based on what he has seen in the many hundreds or thousands of shocks he has rebuilt.

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Again I was not attacking you, the messenger, but the message. The purpose of this forum is to *discuss* ideas. That's all it was.

AuburnFJR said:

Granted, KFG Racing is a race shop and they are recommending what needs to be done for people who try to get the most performance from their equipment and are trying to give us a service interval that can go up or down by how you ride. The wild card is how does each rider ride. And being asked to give a recommendation that really is an unfair situation to put them in. IF they know how you tend to ride then they can give a more accurate recommendation of how long to go between service intervals. They could also fine tune that recommendation once they take your shock apart and see what the internals look like.

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No need to defend them. If you are happy with them, that is all that matters. I will follow the advice of other shops/gurus that I am happy with.

AuburnFJR said:

Right or wrong people watch what you say and use that to make decisions about how they should service their bikes because you are in the position of being an admin. And right or wrong, there are people out there that are going to generalize what you say to mean they should not buy and after market shock when they really should get one because they are trying to ride beyond the capabilities of what their bike is currently capable of doing because they have suspension that is not up to the task.

Now that I know you were not attacking, no offense taken.

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First of all, this is the internet where *everybody* is an expert. If folks don't realize they need to filter out 90% crap to get to the 10% of good stuff, well, I can't save everybody. So, admin, engineer, self-proclaimed expert, whatever, folks need filter out what they think is good info.

That being said, I try to give out really good info to the best of my ability and try to correct misinformation as much as I can. And there is a LOT of misinformation around here. For example, where do you get that folks are 'going to generalize what I say and not buy an aftermarket shock?' I have always been a HUGE proponent of custom, after-market suspensions. Always. You got be baffled here. Show me one time I have not recommended going the aftermarket route.

Now, as for your initial zinger:

Personally, I would never own a bike that you have previously owned because you have professed over the years about how far you stretch the maintenance intervals. I don't necessarily go with mother Yammies intervals on everything either. IMHO, you have been mostly lucky in the longevity of you have gotten out of some of your other bikes.

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I DO take exception to that! Compared to what many folks around here report, I am an angel when it comes to maintenance! However, like many other folks around here, I am not OCD anal-retentive either. I used to be that way. And I 'get it' why some folks are like that. I used to perform various periodic maintenance before it was called for, but after learning enough things from smart folks, and also based on my own experience, I am not like that anymore. But I still do what needs to be done. Though I do not always follow the Yamaha service scheduel. I have learned a LOT from a Trusted 40 year tech who currently owns a small Yamaha dealership but has wrenched on just about everything over the last four decades. Early on, when I took my FJR into his shop for some regularly scheduled items, it was HE that talked me out of having them done. His philosophy on some things, is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' Many times, one will introduce an issue into a perfectly working part by not doing it correctly. So this was money he was losing from me.

I have found his philosophy and advice have served me well for several years and several hundred thousand miles now. But even with him I have a filter and don't take everything he says as gospel. And in that time I have built up a bit of experience myself and learned a few things.

So lucky? I think not.

Since you said it, I challenge you to provide examples of where I have done these maintenance/service transgressions to my poor FJR. Other than suspension servicing that is, I fully realize that I push that envelope a bit and don't recommend it to others. But I DO eventually get them serviced to where they are as good as new, sometimes costing me more for worn out parts, but I know I am not alone in not being an anal suspension maintenance type.

So please, specific examples...........

Hey all, I will give you a recap on some of the things being discussed and things that were said on here, supposed to be the day off ha ha. Should have it posted up by the time we open tomorrow. Also, thanks for the nice write up Dave, it was good to see some of you from the forum in person!

Whoah boys! A couple of chill pills please! You're both good guys and you both can ride the wheels off your FJR's - let's bask in the Spirit of the Season, or some of Papa Chuy's expensive tequila!

Your friend

Bryan/Greg do i need to bang your heads together or WHAT.........

Bryan i got your PM sorry I didnt reply sooner.....Not sure i wanna be with out my bike for the weeks it will take to do the forks as we in SoCal can ride when we want

R

Stupid question maybe but, does the Ohlins shock have to be done by them only? Or by anyone who has that proprietary tool that GP has? Just curious.

GP Suspension said:

Hey all, I will give you a recap on some of the things being discussed and things that were said on here, supposed to be the day off ha ha. Should have it posted up by the time we open tomorrow. Also, thanks for the nice write up Dave, it was good to see some of you from the forum in person!

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I'm looking forward to your comments although it doesn't seem fair for you to spend your day off doing it......unless you are starting to get addicted to this forum like the rest of us.

My personal experience with shock rebuilds is a large sample of one, Dave/Ben rebuild my Wilber's in October 2010. It was almost 5 years old with 26K miles. A couple of rubber seals/gaskets were worn and replaced but there wasn't any corrosion on the shims. Maybe living on the dry side makes a difference.