Better handing
 

hi can anyone help i want to inprove my rear shock and front folks,i weight about 16stone i just to get top notch handing can anyone help or recomend any bike place that deals with this sort of thing.

Suspension on the SV is pretty rudimentary. Not much adjustment can be had other than spring preload. For your weight you will want to get the bike resprung front and rear. I don't know (or haven't heard of) anyone doing the heavier rear spring thing. It's more usual to change the whole shock assembly. There are various shocks off of other bikes that will fit (with a little modification). Otherwise you will have to go the new shock route, but these will be made to fit the SV and will be valved and sprung to your weight.

For the forks you can buy different springs in different rates and either progressive or single rate. You can also get valve emulators and preload adjuster kits (if they are not already fitted to your bike). You will probably want to change the oil for something a little heavier too.

Depends how deep your pockets are, and what year of SV it is...

my svs is a k5

Standard cheapy swaps would be a GSXR shock in the rear, springs nad oil in the front, for something like £100-£150 depending on what you spend on the shock...

Or you can spend about £2000 and get a grand new Penske triple-clicker and Ohlins Track and Road forks :)

What are valve emulators?

On the SV, rebound and compression damping in the forks are provided by damping rods. I'm not familiar with their construction or their precise method of working, however I belive this is a rather crude way of restricting oil flow to achieve damping.

More sophisticated forks have valves in them, which can be allowed to open or close further, so that damping (often both rebound and compression) can be adjusted.

Valve emulators are a way of retro fitting basic forks like the SVs with 'better' (why it actualy makes it better, I'm not sure!) damping. It (I think) also gives compression damping adjustability from the fork cap, so you can adjust it easily like preload. Rebound camping can only be altered by changing to a heavier or lighter fork oil, however.

Hopefully someone can explain better than me, but that's the jist of it 8)

I have the fork emulators, basically they take over control of the compression damping, and also they are adjustable so one more adjustment you didn't have before. I think they're top, and if you ask Northwind he'll tell you that they're the next best thing without swapping the entire front end.

For the rear you might as well go for an aftermarket shock with the right spring. I'm not sure how good the Hagon is, but I plumped for an Ohlins which is very good indeed. Stock spring is good for up to 15 stone so you would need to specify it's for your ass size and they'll do it for you with a stiffer spring to suit.

Cheers for the reply Mr Squirrel, I keep meaning to "improve" the front end, looks like there's now something else on the shopping list. :)

Well, maybe CBR internals would be better, but they'll probably cost as much as a front end swap and it usually cuts down suspension travel :) The emulators are a really nice product...