• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

TE511 REAR SHOCK MODIFICATION

SAM511

SAM511

Husqvarna
AA Class
TE511 REAR SHOCK MODIFICATION

It is interesting that Husqvarna have reduced the open length of the Kayaba rear shock in their new 2012 models by 4mm, in an effort to reduce the operational height of the rear end of the bike.
This of course, will make quite a bit more difference in actual ride height because of the suspension linkage system ratios. I am guessing a bit but I am thinking a 13-15mm reduction ?

I must admit, as happy as I am with the rear end (love the CTS) I have always had a feeling that the rear end sits a little too high and correspondingly the front can feel a little twitchy (mild) in certain circumstances.

Well, I have spoken to my local suspension tuner who is a Race Tech guy and he informs me that it is as simple as puting in a 4mm spacer in the appropriate position on the shaft, in effect shortening the open length. In fact, he tells me that he has already done a couple of TE Huskys with excellent feedback from the owners.

The beauty is that the spacer is actually not changing anything in the shock, so if you do not end up liking the set up, it is really easy to remove and you are back where you started.

I am getting mine done B4 Xmas and I will report back with a post on Cafe Husky with my observations.

I have attached a couple of quick pics of my bike.
 

Attachments

  • TE511 007.JPG
    TE511 007.JPG
    142.3 KB · Views: 34
  • TE511 008.JPG
    TE511 008.JPG
    139.3 KB · Views: 35
  • TE511 009.JPG
    TE511 009.JPG
    130.8 KB · Views: 33
Mate just wondering if you ever did get this modification done? I'm also thinking about this as my bike is a little too high for me.
 
Yes I ha
husky 449 said:
Mate just wondering if you ever did get this modification done? I'm also thinking about this as my bike is a little too high for me.
Click to expand...

Yes I had it done 2 weeks ago by Racetech.
They put in a 4mm spacer internally on the shock shaft and it lowered the rear by a measured 12mm. If you put in a 5mm spacer the rear will drop by 15mm and Racetech actually suggested this but I eered on the side of caution and went with 4mm as per the 2012 models.
Another unexpected benefit I noticed is that it made the relationship of Static and Rider Sag measurements better ballanced IMO. The relative numbers did change.
Also, I always felt that the bike previously was a bit like european bikes of old where they were arse end high. This mod has flattend the stance somewhat and feels far better.
The beauty of this mod is that it is fully reversible by just taking out the spacer.
I highly recommend this inexpensive change. :thumbsup:

SAM511
 
SAM511 said:
Yes I ha


Yes I had it done 2 weeks ago by Racetech.
They put in a 4mm spacer internally on the shock shaft and it lowered the rear by a measured 12mm. If you put in a 5mm spacer the rear will drop by 15mm and Racetech actually suggested this but I eered on the side of caution and went with 4mm as per the 2012 models.
Another unexpected benefit I noticed is that it made the relationship of Static and Rider Sag measurements better ballanced IMO. The relative numbers did change.
Also, I always felt that the bike previously was a bit like european bikes of old where they were arse end high. This mod has flattend the stance somewhat and feels far better.
The beauty of this mod is that it is fully reversible by just taking out the spacer.
I highly recommend this inexpensive change. :thumbsup:

SAM511
Click to expand...
I am confused. How do you shorten a shaft by adding a spacer?
Can you give us the name and email address of the Race Tech person who did the work so I can get it done.
Russ
 
HomeFinance said:
I am confused. How do you shorten a shaft by adding a spacer?
Can you give us the name and email address of the Race Tech person who did the work so I can get it done.
Russ
Click to expand...

Shock Spacers are outlined on the Racetech website and are available in differing thicknesses. They work out at a ratio of 3:1, so a 4mm will lower the rear by 12 mm, a 5mm will lower the rear by 15mm and so on. They are basically a washer that is added on the shaft before the piston and therefore shortens the maximum open length. The actual shock components are unaltered. If essence what I am doing is reducing my measured travel from 300mm to 288mm but I challenge anyone to say they notice any difference except that it is lower in the rear. Works a treat. IMHO it is a far better option than a lowering link which has side effects to the shock action.

SAM511
 
We recently did the 4mm spacer on my TXC511. Agree on all counts, steers better, no noticable loss of travel (though there obviously is some), tracks even better than before if that is possible....and the height reduction is its own little treat.
 
Reducing the length of the shock also increases "trail" witch results in a bit more steering feel and reduces the twitchy feel. we reduce overall length when revalving pre 2012 TE-449 and 511.
 
I am a fat old dude and manage to compress the rear enough to do my own trail increasing. On the other hand my brother who operates at racing weight finds the 4mm spacer to be a nice improvement to the bikes balance.
 
HAVE THE SPEC SHEET FROM CHARLES AND THE SHIM STACK AND SPACER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR 2012 AND 2011
I will see oregonsage at the Fort Rock dual sport so he can scan it and post it.Anyshop can do it if they have the ability to do Race Tech Gold valves.WE did oregonsages and are going to finish it off for him if Tom doesnt get itdone for him first.
 
BILLF said:
HAVE THE SPEC SHEET FROM CHARLES AND THE SHIM STACK AND SPACER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR 2012 AND 2011
I will see oregonsage at the Fort Rock dual sport so he can scan it and post it.Anyshop can do it if they have the ability to do Race Tech Gold valves.WE did oregonsages and are going to finish it off for him if Tom doesnt get itdone for him first.
Click to expand...
I cant wait to post this ........and have you do the mods on my shock :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top