YSS Shock for the Hawk GT

The Hawk GT progresses nicely towards "completion," whatever that means for a nearly 40-year-old motorcycle. The latest thing was to replace the rear shock with a shiny new aftermarket one from Thai suspension specialists YSS. Buddy Rick (this bike's original owner) and I did this on a pleasant Sunday afternoon in Rick's garage.

Obviously a new shock from YSS (the "Top Line" model) is going to be way better than a 40-year-old stock shock from Honda, nevermind an unadjustable one that was built on a budget in the first place. But the YSS shock has a lot to recommend it, too. It's adjustable for rebound damping (you can see that adjuster in the pic above) and spring preload, but best of all you can adjust the length of the shock itself, and consequently the ride height of the bike. One of the things that bugged me about the Hawk GT was how low the seat height is. So I cranked up the YSS shock to its max length and I'm very happy with the result - see pic at top compared to the "before" shot below. You can see it by looking at where the exhaust can sits relative to the wheel centre cap.

Now I haven't put many miles on this shock yet but I can already tell that it's a HUGE improvement over what was in there (a blown stock Honda shock from a CBR900RR). I did leave the spring preload at the factory setting (the instructions recommended leaving it alone) and it seems satisfactory, maybe 20mm of static sag when I sat on the bike. I set rebound to 15 out of 30 clicks out from the softest setting.

With the increased ride height though you have to install a chain roller, or else the chain will eat through the bike's lower frame. I put in one from a Hawklister (user frinesi2's "Overnight Engineering") and that's worked fine, with the added benefit of functionally extending the sidestand a bit to compensate. The only issue with the Overnight part was that the hardware supplied wouldn't let the sidestand retract, the bolt heads were too thick. You could grind them down or use alternate bolts, which I did.

I also took the opportunity to substitute a stock subframe for the hacked up one that resided in the bike, restoring the rear turnsignals to their proper location (you can also see this in the pictures if you look hard). This was a bit of a faff but manageable with me and buddy Rick (mostly buddy Rick) working away on it. We left the new fork springs from Racetech for another weekend.

Thanks -     Buddy Rick for help with the install

                   Firefox Racing (UK) for supplying the shock (I paid full price, no blogger discount)