Shocks

[2SlickNick]

Well I just took the kart out and well it is running well. I went out on the 4 wheeler trails and it was so damn bouncy and a rough ride. I have the Manco Vortex 6.5 hp. The steering does suck on these trails too. it is all over the place ( maybe one day i will upgrade it to the rack and pinion).
The stock suspension is the 12" adjustable shocks all the way around. the bushing area is 3/4" wide. I heard of people putting yamaha blaster 15 or 16" shocks on there buggies. Does any one know how wide the bushing area would be for those? My mounts are 3/4" wide.
Is the extra length what I need to get a softer ride? :dunno:

[2SlickNick]

Correction
My mounting brackets are 7/8 inches wide .
Should the shocks be 7/8 wide too or a bit smaller with a bushing that fits snug??

[MASTERBATES]

What size tires are you running?

[2SlickNick]

Front 14.5-17-6
Rear 18-9.5-8

[2SlickNick]

will the longer shocks give me a higher ride height too?

[x-bird]

most of the stock shocks in these type karts (yard karts with horiz. shaft engines) are purely mechanical--just a spring inside the cylinder with with no oil or air pressure and are pretty much nothing more than a pogo stick. Some do have oil filled ones that are mediocre, tough to say what you have.

However, just about any atv shock will be a vast improvement just as long as the coil spring on it is close to correct spring rate. kart and buggy front ends are typically much lighter and see less direct load than an atv does.

An eye-to-eye length increase can give more ride height, but may also cause front end geometry issues and even bind up some of the components by forcing the ball joints/tie rods to and beyond their travel range.

A quick way to determine what would work length wise is to jack up the front, remove a shock and cycle the front suspension top to bottom and measure the distances between the mounts through the travel extremes. as you do that, watch for any changes in tire position beyond the stock travel limits.

as far as shock eye width goes, excess play can be taken up with washers--most atv shock widths will fit. if the steel sleeve is too wide and extends beyond the eye width, it can be ground down.

[2SlickNick]

Thanks you so much for a thorough well informed answer. I really want to put the longer shocks in the rear to absorb a lot of the rider and engine weight. I will attempt to jack it up and play with the different heights. Would larger front tires be the way to go if I get longer shocks in the front? Which ever shocks I do get will be adjustable for sure.
Thanks again xbird.

[2SlickNick]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161020184455?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2648

what do you guys think of these?

[Johnny 5]

For 20 bucks worth a try. For the rear on our buggy it took three times to get the perfect shock .And for the front the first set was perfect but I had to make brackets and weld them on because the shocks were 1/2 inch shorter with 1 more inch of travel and the front end would hit when fully compressed. If it wasn't for replacing the shocks I probably wouldn't have got into the buggy's. Stock my wife's Baja would ride like a dump truck and bottom out all the time. After getting some shocks from buyatvsonline it made a big difference. The first set in the rear lasted 5 rides and blew out, got them from buggy depot. The second set got them on ebay and they lasted the same about a year and blew out. The set we have now in the rear are still going strong almost two years and still strong. Just make sure you get the shocks with polyurethane eye bushings. The first two sets we got for the rear had cheap rubber and had to take the bushing from the stock shocks and press them in my bench vise, really easy to do.

[Johnny 5]

The shocks you showed look to have the polyurethane eye bushings, a good thing.

[2SlickNick]

I have stock 12 inches that feel like pogo sticks. I think in the rear more travel would be better . I hope I don't try three pairs lol.

[bear]

Hey, third times a charm! lol

[2SlickNick]

Haha, hoping for first time luck with blaster shocks.

[2SlickNick]

since they are air shocks i can adjust the stiffness, right?
how do you do that? I am really thinking about trying these.

[x-bird]

I'd be a little wary of those shocks. it doesn't say they're air shocks anywhere that i saw in the ad and the "reservoir" almost looks like a hollow representation of one--could just be a brass button or screw, again to look like something it might not be. i'd ask the seller a lot of questions about those before dropping a 20 spot on them. they may be no better or even worse than what you have. as far as pressure adjustment goes, some have a ball seat type fill valve that a needle type fitting is used to inject nitrogen in (usually a 10-20 service charge at a bike/atv service shop) others have a common schraeder valve that a shock pump can be used on to test different pressures before having them nitrogen filled. the latter is the type/method i prefer ... i still haven't swapped over to nitrogen on my front shocks as i'm still playing with different sprign and pressure rates every time i redo the back end.

[2SlickNick]

Thanks again x bird , I had those same thoughts.
I did however find some 14 inch Kawasaki Mojave shocks on C.L I am trying to get.
I think those will be the way to go for the rear.

[2SlickNick]

Well I jacked up the front and.... I think I could put the 14 inch shocks on.
I even have two sets of holes on my mounting brackets. The 12 inch shocks are on the front holes, so I could put the 14's there but it does cut it a little close to tie rods. So i can put the shocks on the rear holes which would put the 14 inch shocks at the same ride height as the 12's on the front holes.

[2SlickNick]

So, the kawasaki mojave shocks arrived. the eye width is 3/4 inch and does fit without altering.
However...... Xbird just as you said ATV's are a bigger load.
The new shocks are 15 inch long. and they are adjustable on the lowest setting now......now instead of a pogo stick they are very stiff.
I weigh 200 lbs and can barely move these suckers jumping on the back end. I was really looking for a soft ride. Whomp whomp whommmmp.......
I feel like i just wasted the money.
I better not let the wife know.

[bear]

Could you reduce the resavior fluid to weaken them?

[2SlickNick]

I don't think so. It is a sealed unit with adjustable spring.

[bear]

Bummer!

[x-bird]

Don't give up on them yet, as you should be able to remove the spring and change it out. you may be able find a soft set of springs from a sled. The springs are where the stiffness comes in for the most part.

[2SlickNick]

I will look in to it xbird

[xlint89]

Will they work on the rear where there's more weight?

[2SlickNick]

The rear is where I put them LOL.

[Masteryota]

That must be a real hard spring, I bought a set of blaster shocks for the rear of mine, I hope they aren't too stiff, but I have a bit of weight on you, so it might even out, I think they are around 13 or 13.5".

Have you tried moving the shock around, meaning changing the angle of the shock. If it is more upright, it will soften the spring up.

[Johnny 5]

Resell them on ebay because I know there is some bolt on shocks out there for your set up.

[2SlickNick]

I did do up right, softens it up slightly. I think I will hold on to them and figure something out. I like the added 3 inches and these have 8 inches of flex. Think I just need to know where to look to buy softer spring coil.
Thanks for the help guys.

[2SlickNick]

I heard the blaster is a better shock for the mini buggy. For some reason I thought mojave would be better since it had a better rating in suspension against blaster. I need to try it out on the trails first. I would have needed to grind down blaster shocks and got lazy i guess.

[xlint89]

I personally felt the Blaster shocks were too stiff for my kart. So I opted to install snow mobile shocks. Lots of travel and not as stiff.

I did however need to move my mount bracket. No big deal if you have a grinder and a welder available though.

[2SlickNick]

So tell me what you guys think.
I measured my spring coils and they are approxiamtely 9.5" length and 1.9" - 2" inner diameter.
http://www.zbrozracing.com/atv/suspension/springs?p=1
I am thinking the set of the very first springs 1.9"x10"x 160 lbs. Do you think that woulkd soften my ride?
I think the mojave coils have a 200 or 300lb rating.

[Masteryota]

I personally felt the Blaster shocks were too stiff for my kart. So I opted to install snow mobile shocks. Lots of travel and not as stiff.

I did however need to move my mount bracket. No big deal if you have a grinder and a welder available though.

What model sled shock did you get? Once I get everything mocked up, I will be taking weight measurements at all 4 corners and trying to match something up with those numbers, but sled parts are non existent here in the south.

[xlint89]

Sorry it's been so long I cannot find what they fit through my purchase history on Ebay. They are Polaris snow mobile shocks is all I can tell you for sure.

But what I did do was send E mails to the sellers and ask them what length they were before buying. You can get good used ones for a pretty cheap price. I prob got my pair for around $40 shipped.

You can see them in my pics.

http://buggymasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2601&page=2

[x-bird]

i ran fox/polaris 600s, (you'll see a lot of them on ebay --white bodies with pink or red springs) they worked fairly well until the swingarm weight ( i hit about 250 pounds with the golf cart axle deal) and my abusive riding got to be too much and blew the seals in them. always try to stay with fox at least, all ages of them are rebuildable. i'd go lighter on the springs, down into the 120 range- you can always tighten up the adjustment or move the shock to stiffen them. when they're too stiff, not much you can do but replace.