Long Travel Rear Suspension

Halfway through the 2009 Season Jim finally talked me into trying one of his custom built long travel rear shocks along with a Teixeira Tech Long Travel linkage.  I was skeptical because I felt my stock revalve rear shock was doing fine for me, but I was wrong.  The long travel rear setup really made a big difference in the handling of my quad.  The rear end bucking is non existent now and the way the rear handles sharp edged bumps is really fantastic.  The first time I overshot a jump and I was coming in for a hard flat landing I braced myself for death and the rear completely soaked it up.  I was amazed.

The other good and possibly bad thing about this linkage is the fact that an AC Racing skidplate can be cut to fit the linkage and it fully protects the linkage from damage.  most other linkages hang down and require the skidplate to be cut out so the linkage takes a lot of abuse from rocks.  However the drawback is if you mange to dent the skidplate in the right spot it will bend up and into the linkage thus preventing the linkage from moving and preventing your rear suspension from moving.  This happened to me on a Baja pre run when I hit a rock just right.  I cured this by reinforcing the skidplate with welds and aluminum.  There is no way to dent it now.  However I did run into another small problem.  I raced a particularly muddy/ silty course and the skidplate area filled with silt and mud and it turned into basically concrete.  It filled in all the space around the linkage and prevented it from moving.  I noticed during the race that the rear suspension was very stiff and after the race I found out why.  I drilled a hole in the rear part of the linkage to help with drainage and I think I have this problem beat.

So these small problems of course are avoidable if you just don't run a skidplate or if you modify the AC racing skidplate enough like I have.  The motowoz LT rear shock along with the Teixeira Tech linkage are definitely a great upgrade. 

Some photos:

Measuring to cut skidplate:

cut:

Post race, packed with mud and silt:

My reinforced uber skid plate: