ZX-6 636 Shock on an SV650 Everything I have ever read about my bike, a 02 SV650, says that the suspension is crap. The SV is a good low price bike, and this is one place Suzuki saved some money. The bike comes stock with dampener rod forks that are adjustable only for preload in the front and a preload adjustable only rear shock. The spring rates are also set for someone who is like 150lbs, I'm somewhere around 200.

Last year one of my front fork seals was leaking, so I decided that if my forks had to come apart, I might as well try to do something to help the front suspension. I talked to Sonic Springs, and they recommended that I change to a heavier spring and switch to 20 weight fork oil. The heavier fork oil is used to firm up the dampening action of the forks. I did this, and was happy with the results. I thought that this might make my front end feel too stiff, but it doesn't. Its defiantly firmer than before and it feels much more controlled. All added up this cost around $150 with the seals and having someone do the labor for me.

I knew from reading on SV specific message boards that a good thing to do for the rear is to replace the shock with one from an 02-06 Kawasaki ZX-6 Ninja, It sounds a little crazy at first, replacing the shock with one from a totally different manufacturer, but I figured why not try it if I can come up with one cheap enough. So I kept the idea in the back of my mind, figuring that sooner or later I would find one.

About 3 weeks ago I saw that someone had one of these shocks for sale on socalsvriders.org for $60, so I bought it. After reading how others had done this swap, I thought it was something I could accomplish without too much trouble. It was a piece of cake to install, basically a true bolt in affair. The only real modification I had to make was to space the battery box lower to clear the reservoir on the shock. The stock SV shock does not have one.

The big advantage of the Ninja shock is that it has adjustable compression and rebound dampening, along with having a threaded preload adjustment. The SV shock has only a step adjustment for preload. I used the recommended settings for the Ninja shock from the Sport Rider Magazine's suspension guide. I figured this would be a good place to start.

I have to say that this is a huge improvement over the SV shock. The back of the bike feels totally different, no more do I feel like I'm on a pogo stick. I'm going to get the shock set up better by the suspension guys at my next trackday.

So for a total of about $210 I greatly improved the suspension of my SV. You can spend $1000+ on bike suspension, and I'm sure it would be an improvement form my set up now, but I'm happy with the improvement I got for a relatively small amount of money.

Humm... Maybe I should have called this blog "Low buck SV suspension upgrade"...  ¶ 3:51 PM