gonna try building a custom shock.....sorta.

[Pat Conlon]

Great White, do you have access to a shock Dyno for tuning?

[great white]

Great White, do you have access to a shock Dyno for tuning?

Nope.

I "tune" mostly by feel at a local track.

[great white]

No pics today, but the shock is built. No pics because I blew it apart and assorted parts and pieces are currently in paint and drying.

Tomorrow, it's final assembly and then full steam ahead on the FZ1 swingarm.

[great white]

Assembly complete:





All it needs is an oil fill and nitrogen charge. Then its all tuning once the snow clears...

[FJmonkey]

Very nice work, looks great.

[Tuned forks]

How do you charge with nitrogen?

Joe

[great white]

How do you charge with nitrogen?

Joe

There's a schrader valve on the reservoir.

[Little Pink Steve]

Nice work, think that's something like an 05 CBR1000RR shock.  The 900 & 954's had eyelets both ends.

Would the shock fit as Is ignoring the battery box as mine is history already

[great white]

Nice work, think that's something like an 05 CBR1000RR shock.  The 900 & 954's had eyelets both ends.

The main body is an 05 cbr600rr shock. The reservoir I cut off a cbr1000rr. The hose is from a cbr600f4i. The hydraulic adjuster is off a GTR1400. The spring is 89 FJ1200. The rest is custom stuff that I built myself.

Would the shock fit as Is ignoring the battery box as mine is history already

No, neither a cbr600rr or cbr1000rr will fit the FJ frame mount without major alterations to the area. Mainly the upper mount. You'd have to cut the back off the mount bracket to fit the integrated reservoir and find a way to take up the extra space on either side of the upper bushing. You'd be better off to lop the whole mount off the frame and nust build a new one that fits the shock. Even then, I'm not sure the reservoir would clear whats left in the space. Battery not being there helps, but the 1000rr sticks straight back and up and I'm not sure it would clear things in that area. The 600rr intergrated res sticks out to the rh side and you might get frame interference or something else in the way.

Then you'd have to find a way to get a heavier spring on there. The FJ (my 89) runs around a 1000-1100lb spring and the cbr springs are all down around 600-700lbs.  Both the 600 and the 1000 cbr's. The FJ is simply going to squat a CBR spring too much from sheer weight. Cranking up the preload might fix the squat, but you may run out of spring on bumps and the ride is going to suffer (ie: you are going to suffer). You can forget loading it down with bags or pax with the preload already cranked up for just a rider.

The springs are tapered, meaning you either have to make a collar adapter (as I did) to take straight springs or pay out the nose for "motorcycle" springs. I'm running the FJ spring for now, but will likely swap it out for something else on e I get a chance to get road/track testing done.

You also want to start with a cbr600rr shock. It has a machined from billet center section and cast upper section. It has an "M-EE" part number on the shick body. All other cbr shocks have the body cast as part of the upper section. They're lower quality pieces and you're better off buying something aftermarket. They're rebuildable, but I wouldn't bother with them over aftermarket. The "M-EE" piece is worth the trouble though, given it's quality of it's parts. I also already had all this stuff lying around, so it cost me nothing but my time to build it.