Here's a bigger mod! Short of it: I installed 12.25" FORSA shocks on my SCR950, and then slid the tubes down in the trees until the fork cap is flush with the top of the triple tree. That ends up being 1.75" taller in the back, and 0.25" taller in the front. Raising the rear higher than the front gives me a bit quicker handling, which I like very much. The bike is still rock-solid stable at high speeds, though. No wobble, no twitchiness, no problems whatsoever.
The FORSA shocks are sold on eBay as Harley Sportster 12.25 shocks, and they're the only one (currently) with red springs.
Long-windedness:
I did a buttload of measurements when checking to see if these shocks would work. They have half an inch more shock travel than stock shocks, which equates to 0.625" of additional travel at the swingarm. I measured the OEM shocks and adjusted the belt tension as the manual stated. With the 10lb force gauge, I adjusted the belt deflection to 6mm with the bike on the side stand. Then I jacked it up, and jacked the swingarm up to full OEM compression. At that position, I checked the tension again. The 10 lb force gauge moved the belt only 3mm. So, I then jacked the swingarm to the fully compressed position for the FORSA shocks, and adjusted the tension to 3mm there. I then put the FORSA shocks on, lowered the bike, and checked the belt tension with the force gauge. 9mm of deflection at 10 lbs. That's only 1mm of deflection outside of the 6mm-8mm range. That's actually within the margin of error of adjusting the tension, as some areas of the belt are a little tighter and some a little looser. What this means is that no tensioner pulley is required.
If you want long-travel shocks to give yourself some real suspension travel, then yeah you'll need some sort of tensioner pulley on the backside of the belt. But with these 12.25" sportster shocks, you can EASILY get away without such a modification.
That said, to fit these shocks the swingarm has to move downward far more than stock. If you have the stock exhaust, there is a little bracket on the swingarm that holds the brake line out of the rear tire. This bracket will come into contact with the big metal bracket that holds the stock muffler in place. I removed the bracket and trimmed it with an angle grinder and a cutting wheel. (You could use a dremel as well). I trimmed the front hole so that it's a notch instead of a hole (you could also just make it into a slot), and I also cut off part of the brake line bracket that interfered with the muffler bracket. If you're under the bike looking at it, it's easy to see where it interferes. After cutting I painted it with some Rustoleum and reinstalled, adjusting it to make sure it didn't touch the muffler bracket. You can't see the base of this brake line bracket, as it's behind the muffler. The paint is just for corrosion protection.
"So", you're wondering, "after all this work, how do they handle?!" Well, I'll tell you... the bike handles like it's on RAILS with this setup. The rear suspension feels much like stock shocks. No big changes. On the lowest preload, the bike still feels firm. But it doesn't bottom when going over speed humps at 40mph, so that's a big change. I just rode the bike a good 20 miles, and came back with chattering teeth and numb fingers... but it was worth it. Everywhere I'd normally scrape a peg - or worse, drag undercarriage - were completely without incident. The bike turned in faster than stock because of the reduction in trail, and held a line better as well. It's like suddenly I injected a teensy little bit of R6 handling into my SCR950. It goes around corners like it's on rails now. But 70mph on the highway is still rock-solid stable. I can still take my hands off the bars without any wobble, and the bike doesn't feel twitchy at all.
I FREAKING LOVE IT
So in short you'll need:
It's not a super hard mod if you've got a work shop and you work on bikes all the time... but it's definitely not simply a bolt-on.
Charles.
