I would post pictures of the 8981 Penske shock installed on Ron's '06 FJR if I had a location to host them. Is there someone here who could host them? Warchild possibly? Let me know and I'll send them.
Since 98 percent of our testing for the '06 FJR1300 is now complete, we need only to wait on an extended ride report from Ron before deciding the best spring rates for the front and rear suspension. From my brief and limited test rides of his '06, I agree with his initial impressions. He and I weigh about the same with me being 10 lbs heavier at 215 out of the shower.
To the details: I apologize to the board Mods if this appears as an advertisement. It's not my intention to do that but the "costs" were asked of Ron and he passed that question over to me.
Retail cost of the Penske 8981 shock is $794.95. We (Traxxion Dynamics) sell it for that price minus 5% as our everyday price. We charge $75 to R&R the shock on most bikes when they ride in to our shop for their upgrades.
Retail cost of the AK-20 cartridge kit is $999.95. The kit includes the AK-20 cartridges completely assembled, fork springs, fork spring buffer kit, precut spacers, buffer/spring washers, AK-20 cartridge holding tool, 2 liters of Maxima Synthetic Racing 125/150 7wt Fork Oil, installation instructions complete with recommended starting settings for your weight and riding needs. We do not include written OEM cartridge removal instructions for the DIY owners. We figure that information can be found in the manufacturer's model specific service manual. For individuals not wishing to DIY, our price for installation of the kit in a set of forks is $150. For ride in customers, there is an additional charge of $75 to R&R the front suspension. We offer tech support for all of our customers in the event of problems during DIY installations, suspension setup or anything related to our products.
Spring rates:
In the front forks, we use our 1.10 kg/mm OMNI straight rate springs for riders weighing 200+ and typically ride in a more "sporting" fashion. For riders weighing less and wanting a softer ride, we may select 1.05 kg/mm springs.
On the rear shock, we used an 850 lb/inch spring. For riders weighing less that rarely ride 2-up with less gear in the bags and no tail trunk, we may go with an 800 or possibly a 750. It depends on the needs of the rider, riding style, rider/passenger weights and typical loads carried.
Rear suspension analysis:
The swingarm and dogbones are each 30mm longer than the Gen1 FJR1300. The '06 relay arm is shaped differently than the Gen1 item. The OEM shock is the same size physically using the same spring rate for the longer spring yet the short spring is 400 lb/inch stiffer. The hard/soft lever is not a preload adjuster as I have already mentioned in my report written last December when I tested my own '05 FJR shock/springs. When using the soft setting, both springs are in series and when we tested them in this configuration last December, the combined rate was approximately 440 lb/inch. On the hard setting, the short much stiffer spring was locked out (removed from the in-series configuration) so the effective spring rate was the single longer spring. It tested out at 680 lb/inch on the '06 FJR. This is nearly identical to what we tested the long spring to be last December. What does this mean for the '06??? IMO, Yamaha intended to make the soft setting initially stiffer with their "in-series" spring rate choice. Why??? Probably because the swingarm is longer and would have more leverage on the shock with no other changes made. Now, what about the use of a different relay arm? A quick visual comparison between the Gen1 and Gen2 FJR shows the distance between the dogbone attachment at the relay arm and the frame pivot point is greater on the Gen1 bike. Hmmmmm, what does that mean for the '06? I can only speculate at this point without removing relay arms from a Gen1 and Gen2 and measuring pivot centers distances. I have a sneaky suspicion they made all of these changes to the rear suspension for two or three reasons. They felt they needed to slightly firm up the soft settings due to the longer swingarm. They also wanted to move a little bit more weight towards the front wheel (use of the longer swingarm) to help the handling when loaded up with passenger, gear and tail trunk. And lastly, they wanted to provide slightly more control of the anti-squat "feature" of the shaft drive design. A shaft drive motorcycle's typical behavior is to extend the rear suspension during acceleration and squat during decel. It does that because the pinion gear tries to climb up the ring gear during accel and the inverse is happening during decel. With a longer swingarm, you should have less chassis lift during accel and less squat during decel. The geometry changes to the relay arm were done primarily to offset the longer swingarm AND use the same OEM shock installed on the Gen1 FJR. However, the soft setting on the rear suspension was totally inadequate for supporting the bike alone no matter how it was used. Quite a few things going on here.
Anyways, to sum this all up. The suspension is better straight out of the box on the '06 FJR vs. the Gen1 FJR. There is an outstanding shock available from Penske right now although a mounting bracket is not in full production for the remote resi. I need to get my prototype design of it approved by Max and possibly into production at our machine shop. Ron can now say he has the very first one in the entire world.
We also have product available ready to go for the '06 front forks.
I sure hope this very lengthy post was beneficial to the group. Thanks Ron for letting us use your '06 for the week.
Cheers!
