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A couple of years ago I worked with a major UK company to produce a high quality alloy bodied fully adjustable shocker for my BMW Kay projects.
The reason ? I have been involved in the design and manufacture of specialty cars for 40 years + and could not understand why a quality bike shocker was nearly twice the cost of a comparable car shocker! As a result of that excercise the shox are now sold [ RAM ] Worldwide by Realm Engineering Ltd.
So, here I am again - this time looking at twin shock set ups for my own projects - and again they will inevitably end up on the market after full development.
So - here's a chance to influence the design.
Upside down or normal fitting?
Gold Anodised body or polished alloy [ clear anodised] ?
Rod end fittings as standard?
Red / Black springs?
All shox feature full external dampening adjustment and adjustable spring platform Aircraft grade alloy [ 6262 ] and 16mm plunger rod. Fully rebuildable. Attached is the BMW K1100 version
Mate, the alloy always tops my list as gold can can stand out like a swollen testicle on the wrong coloured bike. Spring colour, same thing - it depends on the bike but black would be safe. As long as we can all pull it apart and paint the springs how we want most folks will be happy. You could (depending on various financial whatsamadoosits) offer a choice of spring colours as a bonus little selling tasty tidbit. Upside down or not? Well which design works best as a shocker? Go with that one i reckon and the shockers quality will speak for itself. Look forward to seeing where this goes.
Geez, you're a glutton for punishment TJ. First tee shirts, now shocks?
This one is going to give you a few more headaches I feel. What length are you thinking of offering? eye to clevis? eye to eye? clevis to eye?
Now the subjective stuff: Silver is more neutral, but gold hints at high performance. Upside-downs only look good with remote reservoirs (is that an option?)
Silver Body, Black Spring is most versatile. Eye to clevis would attract all the honda guys (myself included!) but it shouldnt be too difficult to machine a shock which allows you to switch between the two.
youll need multiple lengths and at least some range of stiffness with dampening to match. Remote reservoirs look awesome in my opinion; especially the ones that arent solid so that you can strap them to the frame.
preload adjustment at the very least, but i would love to see rebound and compression dampening adjustment (like the sport bike riders have!).
also a classic look, but a fully exposed spring (less weight if the spring isnt surrounded).
now stop asking questions and go and make a set thats 13 inches, eye to clevis, and sprung for a bike+rider weight of around 450-500 pounds. Then send them to me.
Bikeboy - the shox are just a part of my ongoing mission to get stuff cheaper [ good quality ] for my Beemer Kay projects [ Including SIXTIES style Cafe Racer ! ] That includes Power plug leads, wavy brake discs and a performance exhaust system !
I'm "retired" now, but seem just as busy as when I was getting paid for a living ! Mostly it's the challenge, and if I can pass the benefits on - hey ho.
Rocan - just so happens that one of my projects is a CB750 [K2] - so guess what shock configuation comes first ! I never take passengers - not fair on them - or me. However, the rest of your wish list is there - and spring rates are no problem!
OK - the shox shown are manufactured by a major UK company and Realm have been using their shox for 20+ years on their Cobra Race Cars. They have been co-developed by me over a 2 year period to get a set up suitable for the BMW Kay bikes. Over 300 shox sold now Worldwide and all happy customers. The pre-production twinshox are made and have been lab tested - road testing comes next.
So, the concept is new [ twinshock ] - BUT not the company or the technology.
The shox will use the same basic body as shown above, but with valving and springs suitable for the bikes in question. There won't be a remote reservoir - sorry guys. We have NEVER needed such an item in over 20 years of racing our Cobras - sure they look cool, but .........
13" eye / eye / clevis just so happens to suit just about every damn bike we're looking at !
Hmmm - the rod ends only work with eye to eye futtox...........
Note the knob adjuster for dampening - and the threaded spring platform for pre-load adjustment.
U/S down seems to be favourite - whereas the Gold / Polished alloy debate seems to be 50/50. Guess we offer both eh? Spring colour is no problem as Red/Black/Yellow are available from the manufacturer.
Keep the advice coming guys - appreciated.
I am all for some high quality cheap shocks. On my Suzuki project I dropped almost 5 bills for a nice set, and that was on sale. My Triumph is shortly going to need a set and some savings in that department would be great. 13" would be about right, but I would need eye to eye. Could you not have the end threaded to accept either a rod end or a screw in clevis? What is going to be the approximate price for a pair going to end up?
Thanks for taking the time to develop something for the guys that don't have unlimited budgets.
The "standard" shox as per the pix are indeed eye / eye - so no problems there.
The eye / clevis is also not a problem as the "top" bush mount is a seperate machined part and can easilly be replaced with a clevis type. That DOES mean that the shocker would have to be mounted "upside down". That is also best for the unsprung weight scenario - but we're not talking race bikes here [ are we?]
Loads of enquiries both here and the US from guys who own modern and retro Triumphs.
I've been involved with various BMW forums for over 4 years now and most of the BMW guys have switched to RAM for quality and price. That's where most of the Triumph [ and other make ] enquiries are coming from, where guys have 3 or 4 other bikes stashed in the shed!
It is looking like TWO basic offerings - Polished alloy [ anodised ] with Black spring - and Gold anodised with Red spring. My CB750 will be getting Gold / Red.
I think there's plenty of interest TJ, but to get some firm expressions of interest I'm afraid most of us are likely to be looking at the bottom line. Is it too early in the development stage to estimate how much these will cost us?
indeed it comes down to bottom line. there are really awesome shocks already out there; take works for example.
Im just not willing to shell out the money for em!
We won't be able to carry out a true costing until the pre-production samples have been made and tested.
To give you an idea - the single BMW monoshock is £225 - this is half the price or less than equivalent shox in the market. I've recently seen quality shox for $1000 + a pair ??
I anticipate that the TWIN shox will be around 10% / 15% cheaper per unit.
However, it is a rule I have that ANY product I develop with the help of a specific club [ DTT in this case ] gets an automatic 10% club discount !!!
Surf - that's the whole point of flagging this up on interested party forums - direct feedback as to what folk want !
The shox can be made any length within reason - however these are handbulit performance units and cost becomes a factor if you have too many variables.
One possibility is to use a [ let's say ] 13" body length and increase the dampening rod distance so the base height can be adjusted on the spring platform without compromising the amount of travel.
I'll run that by the engineers. IF that were possible - the shox could almost be a one size fits all.
That would still mean 4 variations !! - eye/eye , eye/clevis and Gold body / Polished Alloy body.
this will be done through my buddy's company www.realmengineering.com. Take a look at what they do for a day job ! That will show their credentials.
It's a bone fide manufacturing company and they have a secure card payment system. I DON'T make anything out of this - only a cheap set of shox !!
I am retired now, so I am not involved commercially - the boss there just happens to be a long time [ nearly 40 years ] friend and business associate. Realm have been selling the shox I developed for BMW for 12 months now [ 300 + ] with rave reviews. I wanted to be certain that the shocker would be the very best at the most reasonable cost - I'm happy I achieved that.
I just bought TWO Yamaha XS500 project bikes [ wire wheeled ] after seeing the beauty in the "What is a Cafe Racer" thread - seriously impressed with his work. That means the CB750 will take a back seat now [ too many projects - so little time ]. One XS will be a Cafe Racer [ sixties style - what else] and the other will be a Flat Tracker - I'll probably sell my Suzy GS450 Flat Tracker off to raise some much needed fumds ! They cost me $500 including new shox, rearsets, clip-ons, megga silencers, Fi-Glass CR tank and a shit load of spares - I am I a happy guy.
Please be aware - I do this development work [ shox, etc.] out of interest and the will to put something back into a hobby that has been good to me in my life. Also - I hate paying over the odds for something !!!!!
I'm off on a break soon for 3 weeks or so to my place in Germany, when I get back I'm ordering up 2 sets of prototype Cafe Racer shox to try out on a couple of bikes.
I'll flag up pix and give a report - take it from there if there's any interest.
One set will be Eye / Clevis for the Honda folk and the other a Universal Eye /Eye.
Back from the land of sausage and beer now - I'll have more news in the next 3 weeks as the company are on annual vacation shutdown. :
Just before I went off to Germany I spoke to the development engineer there and basically there is no problem - we just have to rationalise sizes and styles as much as possible without compromising performance - he's pretty confident ...........
TJ
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