Reducing the fork travel and lowering the front

[kunju]

I was thinking of the following mods on the NC700X, I am picking up this weekend

1. Get NC700S fork springs (I assume they are stiffer and shorter) and drop it in the NC700X fork. I can't find a Canadian dealer who sells parts for NC700S and would ship to US.

2. Change the handlebar to lower it by 1 inch or so without hitting the tank. Any suggestions?

3. If I can get a cheap NC700S rear shock, would like to swap it out too

4. How would Yoshimura slip-on would impact gas mileage?

 

[Beemerphile]

Hello and welcome Kunju, some comments to your questions...

1) Chances are that the 700s forks are shorter as well. Dropping short springs in the 700x tubes would not work without spring spacers to make up the difference. Then, with the front fork travel limited by the springs and spacers, you could simply raise the fork tubes by an inch to lower the front of the bike. If you lower the front forks without modifying the spring stops, you will be using the bottom of the triple clamp to limit the suspension travel by impacting the top of the fork legs at the dust seals. The specs claim 6 inches of suspension travel and there is 6 inches of fork leg visible between the top of the fork legs and the bottom of the triple clamp. So, raising the forks by an inch would give you five inches of fork leg visible with still six inches of travel. Bang.

2) Since the handlebar risers are cast as part of the top clamp, there is no way to lower the bar without replacing it with a bar having shorter rise. If you are making these adjustment because the bike is too tall for you, you might find that tilting the bars rearward does what you need. The bars would be both lower and closer to you if you rotated them back. There would be no issue with hitting the false tank.

3) The shocks may well be the same length between the two. The easiest way to alter the height of a Honda Pro-link suspension is to change the links. Longer links make the suspension lower. It is possible that only a set of 700s links is necessary, but this would need to be confirmed. I do not know this to be the case. There are also a number of companies announcing lowering links for the 700x that would also work and would be less expensive than a shock replacement unless you were going to exchange the shock anyway.

4) Do not know about the Yoshi pipe. You can be the pioneer and report the results.

 

[Beemerphile]

Checking the spec between the 700s and 700x...

1) The ground clearance on the 700s is 140mm. 700x is 165mm
2) The seat height on the 700s is 790mm. 700x is 830mm
3) Front suspension travel on the 700s is 140mm. 700x is 153.5mm

So, it must be that 25mm of the difference is suspension and 15mm of the difference is probably the seat. Will the seats interchange?

Funny that the 700x only clears the oil pan to the ground by 6.5mm at full suspension travel. That is just over a quarter-inch. Hope there isn't a worm trying to cross the street when it happens. It'll mush it.

 

[670cc]

Moving the bars

Hello and welcome Kunju, some comments to your questions...

2) Since the handlebar risers are cast as part of the top clamp, there is no way to lower the bar without replacing it with a bar having shorter rise. If you are making these adjustment because the bike is too tall for you, you might find that tilting the bars rearward does what you need. The bars would be both lower and closer to you if you rotated them back. There would be no issue with hitting the false tank.

Your comment reminds me to point out something I noticed. On my manual tranny NCX, I rotated the bars back a few degrees until I reached the minimum reasonable clearance between the handlebar switchgear and the not-the-tank. It occurred to me then that there is a difference between the manual and the DCT in this regard. On the manual, the throttle cables leave their housing going forward. On the DCT version, the cables exit downward. This difference would probably limit the adjustable rearward range of the bars before "tank" interference more so on the DCT than the manual bike.

While not a huge deal, I thought it was worth noting.

Greg

 

[happy]

Is it easier if you bought a Ncs and then change the looks to Ncx?

 

[Beemerphile]

Is it easier if you bought a Ncs and then change the looks to Ncx?

Honda, it its wisdom, did not se fit to bless us with teh 700s

 

[Rocker66]

It could have been worse you could have got the S and not the X. I know that it is only a matter of personal taste but I much prefer the X to the S

 

[kunju]

Thank you all for comments and suggestions.

1. From few more research I feel I can easily lower the fork by either as you suggested moving the fork tube up through triple or by changing the spacer to lowering spring spacer inside the fork. Only disadvantage in raising the fork tubes is the tire can touch the engine when fully compressed.

Progressive Suspension - Drop In Fork Lowering Kit - YouTube

2. I think rotating handlebar is a good idea

3. Changing the dog bone is similar to moving the fork up through the triple, it can cause the rear tire to hit the seat bottom. I thing changing or some serious work on the shocks is the only option to really lower the back

4. Will update you onece I get that. Planning to run on stock for 1000 miles and switch to Yoshi pipe after that.

I would have bought the S if it was available in the US. Unfortunately they don't import to here.

 

[Beemerphile]

Good research you are doing here Kunju. It looks like the Progressive front solution should not have the problem of hitting the engine. With the forks in the stock position, the progressive suspension just turns the amount of the drop into suspension sag. You still have six inches of travel and six inches of clearance. The suggestion that I made reduces the travel to five inches and then moves the forks up so that there is five inches of travel and five inches of clearance. What you don't want is six inches of travel and five inches of clearance. That is where things go bang, but it looks to me like the impact will be the top of the forks on the bottom of the triple clamp rather than hitting the engine or radiator.

The rear has more clearance than the front. Depending on how far you want to go, you may be able to get there without issues. Obviously the sidestand will need to be shortened. It would be interesting to study the parts list between the S an X to see for sure how Honda did it. I studied the parts list quite a bit in determining which BMS GS parts would work on my BMW R to raise my suspension by 3-1/2" - I have the opposite problem.