Fazer V Thunderace Swingarm.

[Little Pink Steve]

What's the difference between the Fazer and Thunderace swingarms?  I hear the Fazer might be longer, can anyone confirm by how much?  Other than that are all other parts compatible.  I managed to pick up a complete Thunderace rear end and most of the front 12 minutes from my house, including wheels and very good PR4s for a bargain price..

[aviationfred]

Visually, the 2 swing arms look almost identical. I believe that the Thunderace swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches shorter than the OEM FJ swing arm.

The Fazer 1000 or FZ1 swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches longer than the OEM FJ swing arm.

I have the FZ1 swing arm installed on my 95 FJ. You can see the added space between the front of the wheel and the inner fender.

[mtc]

Visually, the 2 swing arms look almost identical. I believe that the Thunderace swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches shorter than the OEM FJ swing arm.

The Fazer 1000 or FZ1 swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches longer than the OEM FJ swing arm.

I have the FZ1 swing arm installed on my 95 FJ. You can see the added space between the front of the wheel and the inner fender.

what is the point, more stability? longer wheelbase

[Pat Conlon]

I've seen pictures posted here of the swingarms side by side and the Thunderace is shorter....but is it really?



Here is my Thunderace swinger.  See the index marks?
This is with a 110 link DID 530 ZVMX chain and 18t/40t sprockets.
That's the same chain/sprocket combo. many FJ owners use and their axle index marks are approximately in the same place on their stock swingers.
Conclusion: Even though the Thunderace swinger is shorter, the critical distance, the distance between the swing arm pivot and the axle, is close to, if not the same as the stock swinger.

It's the axle adjusters that cause the stock swing arm to be longer than the Thunderace. The stock axle adjusters are behind the axle, the Thunderace axle adjusters are in front of the axle, thus the extra length is not needed.

[aviationfred]

Visually, the 2 swing arms look almost identical. I believe that the Thunderace swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches shorter than the OEM FJ swing arm.

The Fazer 1000 or FZ1 swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches longer than the OEM FJ swing arm.

I have the FZ1 swing arm installed on my 95 FJ. You can see the added space between the front of the wheel and the inner fender.

what is the point, more stability? longer wheelbase

I live in Kansas, 90% of my riding is done an straight roads. The hard luggage is also mounted. Yes, I went with the longer FZ1 swing arm for a bit more stability when the bike is loaded

Fred

[Little Pink Steve]

I'm looking at touring, fully loaded.  The longer swing arm would hopefully provide more stability.

[2big]

Visually, the 2 swing arms look almost identical. I believe that the Thunderace swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches shorter than the OEM FJ swing arm.

The Fazer 1000 or FZ1 swing arm is about 1 1/2 inches longer than the OEM FJ swing arm.

I have the FZ1 swing arm installed on my 95 FJ. You can see the added space between the front of the wheel and the inner fender.

Wow Fred nice upgrades; looks really trick!
Is yours a 3XW abs model - did you have to mess about with the offset suspension link arm and frame?
Nice rear brake calliper and torque arm too - that looks like a suzuki '90-92' tokico calliper

And the front end looks awesome is that later GSXR too - which year?

Really impressed would love some of that...

[great white]

fz1 arm is longer than the stock FJ. Not sure about the thunderace.

I put an fz1 arm on mine, but I cut it down to FJ length:



FJ arm on top, FZ1 on bottom. I lined them up at the shock/linkage mount and then cut the pivot tube back so I could maintain FJ linkage geometry. I just accepted a few fractions of an inch longer at the rear rather than cut and remount hte axle adjusters/mount.




I'll admit that's a little bit extreme for most guys, but having the rear wheel so far back would have driven my OCD nuts! not to mention, the FJ has luxury liner style handling as it is. Making the wheelbase even longer would have slowed it down more and that's not my type of riding. I've got a VMax engined Yamaha Venture for putting on the miles....

But if long distance touring is your goal, another 1.5" isn't going to hurt much of anything....

[Little Pink Steve]

Blimey I didn't expect to see that.  I thought the FJ & Fazer arms would be about the same & T'Ace arm much shorter.  I believe the T'Ace arm is about 1.5" shorter than the Fazer, which would put it about the same length as the FJ.

I'm fitting R1 forks which will drop me 10mm at the front. I plan on lifting the rear 25-35mm so that would take care of some of the extra length I guess.

[great white]

Kinda depends on what part of the geometry you want to maintain.

When I did the swingarm, I wanted to maintain the shock linkage geometry. Altering that changes quite a few things. Turns out it was the linkage mount to pivot length I had to maintain.

You'd have to make similar decisions depending on which arm you use. The thunderace may be a similar length as the FJ arm, but its a matter of what measurements you want to keep and which you are comfortable moving away from stock with...