Has anyone experimented with a longer shock?
 

Curious as I'm a heavy guy and I am often hitting the tire on the underside of the fender and airbox when riding heavily pot-holed and/or rocky terrain. My preload is turned WAY up, but I think the solution is a 1/2" longer shock.

Charles.

I also thought about it and turned up the shock absorber tension, but these motorcycles originally had smaller wheels and therefore thinner shock absorber you need to remember that the motorcycle must stand steadily on the center stand such a shock absorber on aliexpres costs about $100, because it must have a thick spring.

So? I need a longer shock to keep from knobby tires from hitting the underside of my fender and my airbox. I've already turned the preload up as high as I can get it to go.

Charles

Have you considered a stiffer spring?

What would be the point of that? It would not limit the travel and it would still bottom out.

Charles.

If the spring is correct for your weight it would not bottom out. Have you measured the sag on your suspension? When you are sitting on the bike wearing normal gear you'd expect about 30% sag. Adding compression to the stock spring can only compensate so much for the weight being carried. That's why a spring change may well solve your problem. Hyperco makes springs for lots of applications. I tried 650 and 600 springs on my RX4, finding the 600 to be the better of the two. Once you have the dimensions of your stock spring you can see what hyperco has to offer for that length and diameter spring coil. As I recall the springs were less than $100 each. CSC might even have some spring options.

One thing to consider if you change shocks is that the OEM shock only has a small amount of travel. I do not remember what that is but, as an example, the RX4 has 120mm of rear wheel travel and its shock only has 50mm of travel. The linkage is making up the difference. Any replacement shock should have roughly the same amount of travel or you'll be back to square one...tire hitting the fender on full compression.

So, I just cut the dogbones and removed 6mm, then welded them back together. This gave me 3/4" rise. More than I had intended, but it means even with a Shinko 244 the tire never touches the airbox or inner fender, even when hitting speed humps fully loaded.

With the extra rise in the back, and the super tall 244 tire, i had to slide the fork tubes down in the trees 1/2" to keep from having a high speed wobble. Switching to a 3.50-18 instead of a 3.00-18 also helps tame that, or going with a Kenda big block rear tire instead of the 244. (that's the setup I have now)

Charles.

If you still need more height in the front to correct for the lift in the rear, CSC does carry the 19" wheel for the RX3; it's currently $200. It is an upgrade over the 18" wheel that comes on the 2015-2017 RX3's, but became the default option on 2018's onward. In addition to lifting the front, you will be able to take advantage of a wider selection of off road tires available in the 19" wheel size.

Another option would to be to rebuild your existing 18" wheel into a 19" using the stock hub and spokes, but with a new 19" aluminum rim. This would run about half the price, but require more of your time.

Yeah, I just put a tire on the 18" wheel, so I'm gonna burn that up before upgrading to the 19". But where can I get an aluminum rim for under a hundred bucks? I can lace and true a wheel easily, but rims aren't that cheap. Especially black powder-coated rims (so the front matches the rear).

Charles.

I got my 19" front and 17" rear rims directly from Warp 9 several years ago, but right now 19" front rims are very hard to find; looking at Warp 9 Racing's website all I can get to come up are 21" rims, it's the same at Rocky Mountain ATV's site. If you want to try a 21" front rim instead of a 19", hit up Warp 9 here:

https://www.warp9racing.com

and Rock Mountain ATV here - I used a 2015 HONDA CRF450R as my make and model equivalent:

https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t...ront-p?v=11961

The rear rim on the RX3 is also 36 spokes, like the front, so the 2015 Honda option won't fit, since it's 32 spokes. Warp 9 has 36 spoke rears if you want to give that a try.

You can see SpudRider's old Rear Wheel and 21" Front Wheel threads here:

Rear Wheel: http://www.chinariders.net/showthread.php?t=14974

Front Wheel:http://www.chinariders.net/showthread.php?t=17732

You need to find such shock absorbers. Choose a suitable one depending on the load. 405 mm. provide a suspension lift of 1.5 inches, 415 mm. provide a suspension lift of 2 inches. Installed on a motorcycle without alterations.
https://skybike.ua/7669/
https://skybike.ua/7649/

A video from a friend of mine who installed this shock absorber.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSh...PzI7s&index=46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fuv...PzI7s&index=47
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxAS...PzI7s&index=48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSKo...PzI7s&index=50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68mp...PzI7s&index=53

What shock is that and where do I buy it? Is the spring rate comparable?

Charles.

Dear friend.
The spring is much stiffer and provides a 1.5-2.5-inch suspension lift.
At the moment, this shock absorber is sold in Uraine and Russia.
Look for it, all Chinese enduro motorcycles are the same, only they are supplied under different names to different countries. If I find these shock absorbers on aliexpress, ebay, amazon, I will throw off the information for you. Give me time.

Unfortunately, but on the video you can see that the springs are the same length but it is thicker in zongshen is 11.5 and this one is 12, only the mount length is different, so if you would install such an extension, it will come out the same such shock absorbers are on aliexpresshttps://pl.aliexpress.com/item/40001...66161f75BmnDMf, but they have 450 zongshen have 395 I will try first with extensions is a cheap alternative.

Tried that extension on a stock shock first, and it was way, way too tall.

Charles.

Did you loosen the spring after installing this extension?

Why would I loosen the preload? My goal is to not be hitting the bump stop.

Charles.

In my case, the goal is to make the shock absorber softer, that is, to reduce the tension of the spring in order to ride comfortably, but after unscrewing the spring unfortunately the wheel rubs against the air box so it must be very tight and, therefore, poorly absorbs bumps, so I want to try to insert this extension and loosen the spring, and buying a shock absorber that has the same spring but a longer handle is not a good solution, but if the extension will not fit, I will write to the chinese guy, if he will fix this size, because he has a longer 450 I was also thinking to buy a shock absorber with a thin spring, 420 and replace the spring, but there is no 420 that would have damping adjustment only 430 may, and it is the same length as the extension eh.

Yeah, I like the stock spring. I don't like that it hits the airbox when I use off-road tires. With proper preload it doesn't hit often, but it still hits on the really big bumps. When using Shinko 244s on the back, it always hits (the tire is about 1" larger in diameter than even the Kenda big block). I'm a heavy guy and I have no desire to have a softer spring. Just a longer shock. And I've already fixed it by shortening my dog bones.

Charles.

After a long search on alie xpres I accidentally found something like this at 5 in the morning.
https://pl.aliexpress.com/item/10050...65633e5fjyG5W2

So, I said I fixed it by altering my dogbones. This is technically true. But this made the bike very unstable at 70+ mph. The bike was designed for a 15" wheel. A 17" wheel lifts the rear an inch already, and going the extra 0.75" or so that I lifted it was too much.

I might be able to fix it via the 19" front wheel CSC offers, or even maybe by going to an oversized front tire on the existing 18" wheel... but instead I've reverted my bike back to stock (I preferred the lowness anyhow) and I ripped out the airbox. The airbox seal was already compromised, so it had to come out. Looking at it... damn it's going to be impossible to shorten it. So I'm going to replace it with a foam filter attached to the throttle body. I'm going to put it on about 6" of tubing so the filter sits under the left side cover and is protected from dirt and mud and wind. Uni foam filter of course. I'm also thinking about designing a completely different airbox around the filter, just to make water crossings safer.

Just waiting on parts right now. This is gonna be fun. :)

Charles.

https://www.advrider.com/f/attachmen...4-jpg.3595201/

Done.