I've been scouring the web to track down decent suspension mods for my BMW at a reasonable price. Luckily, I managed to get what could be deal of the century from eBay!!! Now to put the problem into context:- My bike comes with suspension not exactly 'orthodox'! The rear is fairly straight forward, shaft drive, single sided swing arm, with a reasonably common coil-over emulsion shock, with minimal adjustment. (Emulsion type are where the oil and damping gas is in the same tube. OK, but as things get hotter, the gas and oil mix, giving inconsistent damping.) The front end is the most bizarre, there's no frame to the bike, so th front as a subframe to mount another coil-over shock, with a swing arm attached to the lower end, holding the forks. The forks in this case are purely telescopic tubes to allow the wheel to move up and down. This coil-over has no adjustment at all. BMW did over. 'Sportpack' option, which consisted of a proper Öhlins rear shock, fully adjustable with a sexy looking gold reservoir remotely mounted and th obvious yellow spring, but the front end is another basic emulsion type, just with the yellow spring. Over all a big improvement, but not quite what I or others wanted. BMW addressed the problem with the HP2Sport. This bike was BMW's show case for what it could do with the boxer engine. All dressed up in proper structural carbon with 'proper' Öhlins front and rear. Cue eBay..... Luckily (for me) both front and rear HP2 shocks have come up for sale. The rear was a fairly straight forward one for one swap, the front was a 'little' more complex. To tak the front shock out, the fuel tank needed to come off. Simple in theory, but as the bike's got a half Fairing, which is a front, side and tank cover in one, that needed to be taken off first. The shock itself was quite easy to take out, and then fitting the Öhlins was again quite easy. The problems started when I tried to refit the tank. On the Öhlins the rebound adjuster is fitted to the top of the shock and sticks up by 35mm where the standard shock only sticks up by 15mm. This meant the fuel tank wouldn't fit! Arse!!! In normal 'Squaddie' improvise ad adapt, I looked for a BIG hammer! The next problem was that as the tank's made of plastic, it didn't matter how big the hammer, it wouldn't work! To get around this, I slid a long 17mm socket and long extension over the adjuster, grabbed a Black and Decker heat gun and sat on the bike. Holding the socket and extension in one hand, heat gun in the other and pressing the tank with my gut, we had a result! All that was left was to bolt everything back up and a trip yo KAIS to get things set up. The results are awesome. The only issue is as the suspension is so good and I can't feel it working (the standard stuff could 'crash' through some bumps) my clean licence might no stay so squeaky clean!
Rob those Ohlins are a propper peice of kit, you do right to get KAIS to set them up for you because there are so many settings you can f*ck the whole thing up. One thing you will notice is how plush the ride becomes, its like riding a completely different bike. They are also mega for track days, if you ask KAIS they will give you the stiffer settings for a track day. Happy riding mate
Been there, seen it, done it with KAIS! (and got some stickers from them for when the bike's painted!) instead of the Van Harten bit, I've got some red, white and black KAIS stickers. Firm believer in supporting local business and in return, they'll sort me out when it's rebuild time. The stickers I've got are like this, but with red high lighting, not the yellow. A mate's just got a vinyl cutter thing, he's sorted me out with all the other bits so all sorted there!
nice piece of kit them are.... look forward to the finished pics m8 you should accept some more bribes and have a look HERE
