My Maj’s crapolla OE shocks are done, the fork feels very harsh as well and bottoms out violently with alarming ease. What I’m after is better suspension, but NOT, let me re-emphasize, NOT, the locally produced “racer” “type-R” “race” fake Ohlins junk I see in scooter shops and on most ricer scooters. I’m more than happy for the shocks/forks to be locally manufactured, even a local brand, but I just don’t want the super hard, gold anodized tat they con the boy-racer wannabes with. I want shock absorbers with actual damping that will add a modicum or ride quality on Taiwan’s terrible roads. Independent High/Low speed compression and rebound adjustment is not necessary, preload is though and normal rebound adjustment would be nice, I guess.
I’d certainly appreciate any suggestions the motor scooter minded amongst you might have.
The boy racer super hard forks do not exist.
They are usually only a teensy bit harder than the stock shocks and some of them are better made and offer some form of adjustment.
Whats your budget, the first thing i do with a scooter is junk the stock shocks!.
If the seals are good and the legs not rusty the best option for the front end is flush and replace the fork oil. Maybe use a slightly heavier weight fluid to move the entire damping curve up. If you can only find regular replacement fluid with no options on weight, cut that 50/50 with ATF, but be sure not to overfill. You could ask at the dealer for the price of new fork leg assemblies. Don’t know about Yamaha in particular but Kymco factory parts were surprisingly cheap…
For the rear… I recall smelly recommending one of the local brands as being better built than the others.
It all depends on how much you want to spend really.
Redwagon is offering a good solution for the stock forks, i did the same thing with my wifes stock forks on her BWS and it did improve them a fair amount.
The main reason i like upgrading the forks is because stock forks weigh a god damn TON and some of the aftermarkets are almost 50% lighter, makes the bike handle more quicker and feel tighter.
Brands to recommend:
RPM (offer lower end shocks for a good price)
K1 (expensive!)
MAX (not bad for budget)
To avoid:
RRGS (seals are always failing, damping adjustment is purely visual)
GJMS (chinese made and overpriced!)
anything with a chinese name of any kind
Another trick I used to use often on forks for heavier owners of bikes like the NSR or FZR is to braze up one or two of the bleed holes in the damper tube to slow the flow of fluid and increase damping that way.
When stiffer springs are not available you can cut the stock springs by a small amount and fit a spacer to increase preload and maintain sag height. Just be careful not to cut too much or you have coilbind too early, losing a lot of suspension travel. Need to compress the spring outside of the fork to check the fully compressed length and calculate from there how much to cut.
Thanks for the suggestions fellas, her Majesty and I salute you. To be honest I’m not looking to spend a bunch on the old nag since it’s just a runabout beater, not anything I really care too much about upgrading. I think I’ll start with switching the fork oil and do some online looking about for potential shocks from the SBL’s recommended list. I notice the Maj isn’t the scooter warrior’s upgrade base of choice since almost everything seems to be for Cygnus’s’es or BWS’es’s, but I suppose someone somewhere has some Majestic spec shocks kicking about. That’s interesting about brazing up the damper holes Redwagon, I had always assumed that for stock fork damping they just chucked a handful of rusty nuts and bolts in with the springs, flipped the “drink tea” sign around and called it a day.
The majesty shares a similar fitment to the cygnus in regards to suspension front and rear if my memory serves me right.
Quite a few of them do get tuned up, so finding parts is VERY easy.
Holy hell OE yamaha shocks are cheap, NT$1,500 for a pair! If that’s retail what is the factory BOM cost, like NT$250? What manner of nefariously cutting edge "tou-gong-jian-liao"ery is going on to make them that cheap? I feel nervous riding the damn thing knowing that.
