Medium Al

Well I just looked at the shock and also the documentation and there's nothing I can see on either indicating spring rate. Sorry. I never thought to ask. Al

Ok, great. So to review, I should get a 19" hose with a 90 on each end? Thanks! Maybe I am wrong but I think the Penskes are made specific for each type of bike, and even each rider (weight and anticipated useage). Meaning not only do they already have fixed specs for hose length and fittings (and shock length , etc.), but you need to give them some more info so they can set internal valving and spring rate. I would call up Traxxion and/or Penske and talk to someone. There was a group buy here a while back, that's where I got mine. Medium Al

Ohlins arnt adjustable ?? Ohlins are MORE adjustable than the Penski for the 'bird... I assume the Penski is adjustable for compression and rebound like the Ohlins, but the Ohlins also has a remote preload adjuster, so you're not under the thing with a hammer, drift, and spanner every time you want to go on a ride with a passenger... '01 to '03 model here... http://www.indysuperbike.com/customer/prod...6867&page=1 Mike Penskes adjust spring preload via a small rod that slots radially into key holes in the upper spring perch, which is threaded onto the shock body. It's real easy, or at least it is on the 8961 I got with the group buy. Medium Al

How difficult was that? I have changed fork seals on dirt bikes, my V45 Sabre and ZX11. So I have had forks apart and put back together correctly. I am considering the kit too. Was it easy or should I have Traxxion do it? Pretty easy, but time consuming. I did not want to be sitting around waiting for forks so I did them myself. The Traxxion instructions were not so great, but the hardware once installed works quite well. Worth every penny. Couple of minor things could have been done better. Like the 8 mm x 25 bolt at the end of the fork tube that holds the damper in has to be "ground down" 5 mm. Well I did that and the thing gets so hot I am sure the heat treating is all messed up, which makes me nervous with respect to suspension components. Not to mention the threads. Well you can get 8 x 20 mm heat treated bolts pretty much anywhere so I did that instead. Turns out the heads are a tiny bit too long (maybe 1 mm) so a small amount of grinding took that off. I wasn't too crazy about the way the preload and rebound adjusters went together. As there are no diagrams or pictures it was not clear exactly how the spacer orients in the tube (hole up or down?). There are two washers per side that go above and below the plastic spacer/spring guide. Turns out they are of different ID and they will not sit right on the plastic thing unless they go in in the right order. Nothing in the instructions about that. Installing the new fork caps with the rebound adjuster and preload adjuster is not explained well and you have to picture in your head exactly what is going on otherwise you won't have enough turns to adjust the rebound when it's assembled. Etc. etc. Little stuff. If this turns you off by all means have them do it. If it doesn't have at it and save some $. I would get the instructions and the special addenum for the Blackbird installation and read them first before you decide. I have electronic copies of these if you want them. Having said all that it is still a great mod to the bike, completely changes the character and handling. Basically the tires are now mainly doing traction and the suspension is doing suspension, as God intended. Before the tires did both and the suspension kind of just wallowed around when it felt like it. Medium Al

+ 1000 Medium Al, thank you so much for posting this. It even works for Ohlins shocks. I printed your directions out and took them out to the garage, followed them step by step. It really made the job a simple one. It probably took me about 2 hours. But I was dinking around getting the routing just right. I think it was the title that got my attention. Glad you found it useful. I installed the adjustable rebound/preload Traxxion fork kit from the group buy the following weekend. Didn't find any shortcuts there unfortunately. Medium Al

Hi Folks, Just went for the second shakedown run after installing the double adjustable Penske from the group buy. Man what a difference! I read the other posts about shock installation and stumbled across a couple of things while doing this I wanted to share. This would bring shock replacement down to maybe 30 minutes if I had to do it again. No floor jacks or fiddling with the rear tire, or removing anything other than the shock. What I did that was different was after placing the bike on the center stand and propping up the back of the gas tank, I removed the top shock U-bracket nut (the one on top of the frame in between the two tank bolt holes). This lets the tire settle to the floor and unloads the suspension completely. Then I got on the floor and removed the suspension linkage nuts and bolts from that pair of triangular brackets. The forward-most bolt goes through the shock and I did that last. The bottom bolt goes through a linkage arm, the rearmost bolt through a pivot rigidly held to the frame. I took out the bottom bolt first, then the rear bolt then the shock bolt. After you do this the whole shock assembly just drops right out. Presto. Next steps are to remove upper U-bracket from old shock (I used an electric impact wrench) and assemble it with additional pieces that came with the new shock (two halves of a metal bushing) to the top of the Penske. I set this up so that the hose came off to the left side (facing forward) of the bike. You just slip the whole thing back into the frame, loosely thread the top nut to the U-bracket bolt (a few turns only). Now it is hanging by a few threads on the top nut. Next reassemble the triangular bracket (after putting the other metal bushing in the bottom of the shock) and torque it all down. The suspension is unloaded so I did not have to jack up the rear or anything. Now torque down the top nut up near the tank. It is important to do this last. The Penske was exactly the same length as the stock shock, hole-to-hole. (Probably could still do it this way if you wanted to add 6 mm of washers.) So torquing the nut down at this point raises the rear tire back off the ground. It is important to hold the top of the shock/U-bracket in place with your hand while you do this otherwise it will rotate out of position. The only tricky part was routing the hose & cannister. It ended up exactly where the other folks put theirs, under the seat to the left of the tool kit. However I did have to take off the tail, loosen the fender, remove the battery, and fudge around with the main wiring harness and (empty) battery box portion of the fender on the left side of the frame. This was to make a clear path for the cannister from the shock absorber area under the tank, through to the inside of the seating compartment, without routing the hose over the outside of any frame rails or kinking it. It can be done without too much effort but you have to think it through and not force anything. So start to finish on this was about 90 minutes, including all the figuring out stuff. Now that I know how to do it maybe 30 minutes tops? Next project is the Traxxion fork cartirdges. I need new fork seals and some more stuff to tackle that. The bike already feels completely different and much more comfortable to ride. Medium Al