In Preparation: Suspension Breakdown
Friday, July 8, 2011 | 10:00 AM
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The suspension you see working hard underneath the riders in the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship is certainly being tested to its limits. The speed of the bike as well as the size of the obstacles puts the fork and shock under intense pressure each and every second of every moto. The guys tuning said suspension have to be experts in the field. As we look into the behind the scenes aspects of motocross for our In Preparation feature, `we called up factory Honda’s Suspension and Chassis Director Shane Drew and get his take on what he does to prep the suspension each and every week.
Racer X: Shane, can you take us through a week in the life of your teams suspension?
Shane Drew: The suspension is taken off the bike every weekend and we ship the fork and shock back to our shop. They go out on a Monday and we get them on Tuesday. Then we start the service work for the next race. For outdoors, the things get hammered a lot more than in supercross. So we really have to look at them closely, not that we don’t for indoors but outdoors, we really have to check things out as they are pushed to the limits. Everything gets torn down every week, all new seals and bushings, inspect the shims and the shafts.
Photo: Simon Cudby
How bad do these guys wear things out?
It’s really more precautionary than anything else, we don’t let anything get to the point where something is worn out you know? Because of the nature of motocross, we see a lot of rock dings and chips in the fork tubes. So you have to be careful and watch that closely. We put new seals in because we have them apart anyway. 99 percent of the time, everything is fine and there’s no cause for alarm but you know as a mechanic, you stripped your bike down to the frame to make sure everything checks out fine. And that’s for no real reason.
I’m sure you use a shock and fork dyno right?
Oh yeah for sure, everything is dynoed and checked out. A lot of times we dyno the stuff before we take it apart to see how it measures up against the way it was when it went out. Then we take it apart, service it and dyno it again to make sure that it follows the curve that we want.
What kind of lifespan you get with shims, do they wear out?
They definitely wear out, they get a little bend in them and need to be replaced. The guy that does the work for us on the parts is Ryo Okuda and I have to give him thanks because he is the one tearing the stuff apart (laughs)! He’s the guy that looks at all the shims, checks them for flatness and replaces and needed. Probably every two or three weeks.
Is there a rider that you’ve worked with that is notoriously hard on suspension components?
No, not really it’s not like an engine where depending on how the guy rides it, it may need replacing sooner. Everyone is hitting the same bumps!
Photo: Simon Cudby
What about springs? How much fatigue do you see in those?
What we’ll do is start each series with brand new springs and go from there. The race stuff and the spare stuff will all have new springs and at the end of that, they will become practice, test bike springs. We don’t rotate the suspension out in any way, everything is the same. We try to make them identical and that’s why we dyno them. Each thing will be a little different though, we’ll dyno six or seven shocks and there might be three that might be a little closer so all those will go to one rider.
After all that, we’ll ship everything back to the next race and the mechanics will build their bikes with the new stuff that was already on the truck. Then the stuff from the shop will become the new spare stuff.
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Thats just great!!!! I had to use my same suspension for a season except for oil changes
Must be nice to have those deep pockets... really starting to think MX/SX needs budget caps both pro and am
Man, it must kill Grant to stare at that Honda and not be able to ride for months on end, then to go out and tweak his knee. Hope he gets to ride at his full potential before his contract is up at years end....
Metta, Mr Alessi said the universe would get him....and it did.
When did teams start tearing bikes all the way down & inspecting & replacing everything? I know they've been doing it for years but did they do that back in Hannah's day or Bailey's. Or did they just clean the air filter & change the oil then race it again the next weekend
It's research and development, Bob. Manufacturing quality control, life cycle analysis, design tests, and on and on are the reason for all the needless (for us) inspection.
Can't do a life cycle test if you never let it runs its course.
This is all common sese, Heck I used to rebuild my suspension every week also in the 70's then in the 80's it got beter and could make it for 3-4 weeks. I ran Ohlins because it was the best a mere mortal could buy. The old monoshoks couls last 2 weeks dependeing on where I raced, I have even redrilled my forks on my Harleys damper rods and am running nitrogen forks with springs. Ya I was a suspension expert at one time.It is easy to do the changes the factory guys make it a big deal. Ya just have to have a nitrogen tank and a Moto-X fox pressure gauge that I still use. I did retire from racing in 95 but still rebuild suspension for some of my Harley friends, Lke I tell them all the horsepwer is not wourth a thing if the bike cant handle it. I will shut up now, LOL.....
@Jake511.... I'm only going to give your comment a little perspective. Yes it is R+D at the basest of levels however all of the components that they are using are made of unobtanium, mostly limited run production, and only in the vaguest of ways does this technology trickle down to us. And like RH709 said, there isn't much life cycle testing going on here as even the most slightly suspect pieces will be replaced. This is racing at the top level, in any discipline at the pro level this is commonplace nowadays, especially in motorsports. I think it all goes back to the race on Sunday, buy on Monday philosophy that implies that winning race teams motivate the consumer to choose their product.
Yeah, I like Grant in a lot of ways, but that takeout of alessi 2 seasons ago was F'd up and it looks like the universe really did come back and bite him.
Looking back on that takeout, I can't believe the AMA didn't atleast fine him when they should have suspended him for a couple races. Here's Alessi trying to race with a broken knee and Grant blatently goes out of his way to take him out. The AMA seems lack when it comes to stuff like this.
@slarveson, Its very hard for the AMA to know what grants intention was and therefore you can't punish him. Was his intention to take Allesi out or to just get by him? he had a wheel in front when they made contact so I can't call it a complete T-bone type take out. You can't ask riders to pull up or take it easy on certain riders because they are riding injured. By the way I am not a fan of JG. Don't like his attitude.
I am not a fan or Grant or Alessi nor do I dislike either rider. They are both very fast and they do have a history.
Watch the video from the Thunder Valley incident, and I mean carefully. The 6 guys on the video going through that corner before Grant took the exact same line as Grant. Alessi was the one that jumped his line, from outside to in, because Alessi was in the slow outside line. Again, watch the video. As soon as Alessi jumps his line with his front wheel the contact takes place. 100% the fault of Alessi. Watch the video.
I run Mucas Oil in all my suspentions, end never has to work on it!
For everyone out there wondering if the whole Grant vs. Alessi deal was morally right or not, i'd like to remind you of something. Remember back in 2005 in the lites outdoors series there was a certain crash. Alessi and Tedesco went down and Alessi ran over and held Tedesco's kill switch down and kept him from getting up before him. So, with that said, who do you think deserves the sympathy now?