Hagon Nitro Shocks

I have Nitros on my T100, and Hagon progressive springs in the front. They transformed the handling so fingers crossed for you, once it warms up enough to fit them.

 

No emulators?

 

I have this sat in the workshop awaiting fitting but currently knee deep in kitchen refitting.


New springs underneath and 20w oil in the bottle.

 

i fitted the hagons to mine along with there progressive springs for the front very happy with the results

 

I have the full kit, as shown above, from YSS although yet to install it due to knee deep in diy. However drilling out of the piston rods seems to be a very grey area that no one seems to agree on with people arguing both ways....
I'd suggest you do a bit of research/reading on the emulators as they do make a difference to hitting sharp edge surface defects i.e. fast compression.
There are a few articles about online but a really good book on explaining suspension, and with excellent clear diagrams is;

Race Tech's motorcycle suspension bible
By Thede and Parks

I'd recommend it

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/...z_xH46F7j44eH-0EJN9n5dmZfK7rTpJEaAkhrEALw_wcB

For anyone curious or interested.

 

Happy New Year @Eldon

Hope the Kitchen refitting has gone / is going well. When you get round to fitting this kit, do let us know how it went and what the bike is like afterwards.

I'm working on my list of pre-riding season mods, which will include fitting the YSS valve emulators (the the same as in your kit and I've already fitted TEC progressive springs).

If you haven't already done it, when you take the drain bolts (what Triumph unhelpfully call "Capscrew Oil Lock") out of the forks, please could you take the time to measure them and let me / us know the dimensions of the bolt (I want to replace mine)?

Does the instructions in your kit give any guidance on how much preload to put on the emulator valves for different rider weight / riding styles? The instructions that came with my valves only gives details about how to drill out the Piston Dampers and that the valves come pre-set to two turns.

Looking forward to hearing how it goes.

 

I think I've described the difference the TEC springs made in other suspension threads, but they can get buried with time.

My Street Cup was ordered with Triumph's Fox rear shocks fitted, so I can't describe what difference they made, but I'm happy with them as delivered; set at the softest spring rate and the damping set to normal. If anything they may be a little firm.

As for the TEC progressive front springs I'm delighted, especially for the price: They looked well made on delivery and fitting was simple, supported by watching TEC's fitting video.

I did place the TEC spring side by side with the standard spring before fitting, and it looked like they may be a few millimetres shorter, which might suggest a very slightly softer ride, but I doubt it.

For me the improvement in ride and handling was noticeably better: Before fitting I found the front end very harsh with little sense of what's going on under the wheels, especially on our uneven, poorly maintained UK roads.

After fitting, test rides (that included deliberately aiming for sunken manholes and shallow pot holes) revealed a much smoother, more compliant ride with more of a sense of what's going on under the wheels.

And of course all of the above was improved even more when I recently replaced the stock Pirelli Phantom tyres with Avon Road Rider 2s.

 

Happy New Year to you too @RevPaul
Unfortunately the kitchen refits gone a bit wrong despite employing a professional joiner, so we are now in dispute and in a stalemate situation
Additionally, I have also another motorcycle project taking precedent plus with the weather against us limiting riding, the 900 is on the backburner.
I will measure the bolts for you when I do it but I'd guess, from experience of other bikes and not this one, that they'll be something like m8 cap heads around 40mm long.

Setting the emulators; I would install as supplied and see how it goes first as everything is a compromise with no one right answer.

What did your instructions say about drilling the damping holes out?
I contacted the specialist suspension supplier of my kit to enquire this very point. To say the response was very non-committal was being generous as they didn't want to agree or disagree with any of the suggestions I put forward "just in case it goes wrong" as they said.
I plan on drilling the existing holes out to 8mm diameter.

Don't drill additional holes higher than the current ones as you will simply increase the undamped stroke area.

 

Sorry about the kitchen dispute, what a naff way to start the year.

Reading your reply has made me realise I’ve been a bit of a numpty. I bought a pair of piston dampers (stupidly expensive) towards the end of 2023; I’ve just realised I can measure the threads in them to get diameter and pitch duh ! Still need to know the length though.

Like you, I did a fair bit of research on the YSS emulators before buying, not helped by YSS’s own website. The instructions available to download make no mention of drilling the rods (which I wanted to avoid having no workshop available to me), but the instructions that came with the emulators do tell you to drill the rods and give a chart of the number and diameter of holes to drill according to emulator size!

TEC’s emulator fitting video is really good and helpfully explains that the drilling is to take away any damping effect from the rods and leave all damping to the emulator valve. But what George doesn’t show is him drilling the rods, instead he goes all Blue Peter with “here’s one I drilled earlier”. I want to use a bench drill and vice because I don’t fancy hand drilling accurately into a curved surface.

The reason I asked you about number of preload turns to put on the valves is because I can’t find any information from YSS or anyone else on this and annoyingly when George gets to that point in the fitting video, goes all mumbly, as he struggles to find the right phrasing to describe the way the ride compliance is affected by the emulator preload.

I’ve now discovered that a friend has a bench drill, so the plan is/was to buy and pre-drill the piston rods before dismantling the forks, that way if it all goes pear shaped I still have a bike I can ride. Although that means I’ll have a pair of undrilled piston dampers left over when I’ve finished.

I’ve now ordered the book you recommended to see if that helps my understanding / confidence before I start the work.

 

Here you go @RevPaul a couple of pics from the book to give you something to think about.
Personally I'm going to run my emulators as supplied then fine tune if needed. Interestingly the oil suppied with the YSS kit is 20 weight where as I would probably have chosen 10w so we'll see how it goes.

 

If just changing the rear shockers no stands are required and this can be completed with both wheels on the floor.
I did mine one side at a time using only the sidestand.