Replacment/aftermarket Shocks

I bit the bullet and ordered a new pair of Progressive 416 series shocks today. They set me back $320 delivered.

The set I got was the 416-1626-A
Theses are for a 84-Honda Gold Wing. They have both a Air spring and a conventional Spring. The shocks I was talking about before were the 82 Gold wing shocks that have a shorter Eye to Eye length (13.01) the 416-1626-A shocks have a eye to eye length of 13.90 it’s a bit longer then stock by about 1/4 inch but I figure by the time you account for sag ect you should be close. I can relocate (raise or lower the shock mount) if needed. The plan is to try these out on the rear and if they work real well get a 2nd set for the front, then add a on board 12v compressor so that I can add or subtract air on the fly to adjust the ride :slight_smile:

Here is a pic of the 416 shocks.

Here is a link to where I got them

Progressive Suspension 416 Series Air Shock 416 1626A | eBay

Sorry the link above did not work. Try this one

Progressive Suspension 416 Series Air Shock 416 1626A | eBay

Sounds Good, let us know how you like them!
Now I wish I had kept the set I took off my 85 wing a couple years back.

I have my car all stripped apart. Ill throw them on the back and see how they work. Who knows how they are going to work? The only info I have got was a old You Tube video I saw where a guy had a set mounted up. But I never saw any reports back of how or IF they even worked. There are literately thousands of different shocks that could mount up and work. What are the Odds that a 85 Gold wing is gonna be the ticket???

Do you think they might be more effective in front? The back is alreadry a bit softer because of the battery weight.

Try em on both ends.

The car need shocks all the around for sure. I friend has a Ford THINK and its a way better then the Gem ride. But yes if they work well in the back they should work well in the front

Gwest,
I can’t see why those shouldn’t work just fine. The dry weight of both vehicles are within a couple hundred pounds of each other and by adjusting the air pressure you should be able to customize your ride the way you want it. I think you’ll have a pretty sweet set up when you’re done!
John

Thanks for the vote of confidence :slight_smile: I like the idea of being able to drive around with just me and my wife and soften up the suspension via the air input. And then if we load up the car full I’m able to add more air to increase the load capacity. I had a pair of airbags on my Ford F150. It had a onboard compressor, and a air pressure gauge along with a inflate and deflate switch. So you could look down and see how much pressure you had in the suspension at any one time and depending on if you were towing or carrying a heavy load you could add A bit of air or take some away to make a better ride after a while of playing with it you figure out what air pressure gives you optimum ride.

You might want to consider looking on eBay for an air compressor of an older Goldwing, sometimes you can find them pretty cheep.

Do you think a single gold wing compressor would have enough power to work on 4 shocks?

No problem as long as the front and back shocks worked right with the same pressure setting.

Yes that may be a issue. In that case I guess I would need 2 separate compressors. The goldwing compressors look like they would work nice for the GEM. 12v and they are used with a electrical system that’s way smaller then what a gem has. Depending on the Amp draw I may or may Not want to run the compressor draw threw the DC to DC converter.

I got the Kit today, it’s got all the air lines and connections as well as a bunch of diffrent sized spacers that go into the Eyelits. So if your using a large or small mounting bolt you can put the right sized spacer to fit the bolt your using.

Can’t wait for a performance report.

I decided to order a 2nd set for fronts and swap them all out. I figured unless the front and rears had the same spring rate it might give me false feedback. I will swap out just the rears first and then take it for a spin and then Swap out the fronts and see if they make a difference.

Here we Go I got all 4 shocks

Ok I got the Rear shocks installed. They were super easy to install, I can tell you right away that the differance is Night and Day as far as softness and shock travel. The stock shocks don’t even seem to work compaired to the new ones. Example if you jack the car off the ground in the rear and lower it with the stock shocks there is zero sag or shock movment. The New shocks with about 40 lbs air pressure have about 3/4 of a inch shock sag, just like what you would expect when you jack up and lower down your car. The weight of the car soaks up a bit of the shocks travel. The amount of Sag can be adjusted via adding air.

With the stock shocks I would climb into the center of the car and bounce up and down and the suspension would barley move. Now with these New shocks the car actually moves up and down like its suposed to. You can feel the rebound and dampining show down the return slow things down so it’s just not a Softer spring creating a bouncy ride. You can add air to stiffen the travel. I put 70lbs of air in the rear and it seems to give it a ride that would be great with a fully loaded car. I moved forward to work on the front shocks and I need to weld on a new shock mount.

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So this is the deal with the front. I have the MZ motorsports 9.5 HP motor that is quite larger then the stock 3.5 hp motor. The 9.5 is longer then the stock motor and sticks out about 5 inches further and therefor you need to relocate the shocks. It requires you to move the shocks forward.

I moved the stocks shocks forward and have been running around on them "relocated " for some time now. When I went to install the New Air shocks I found out that I need to weld on a new top mount shock location. This new location will be about 4 inches in front of the stock location and a few inches higher.

This new location will be based off of the optimal ride height. I’m gonna figure out the exact amount of sag the new shocks have with 40 lbs air and calculate that position where the new shocks mount. I want the tires to have zero camber when the car is loaded with 2 people in it and sitting on the ground. Making a completely new mount will give me the ability to mount the new shocks at what ever height Is best.

I’m REAL interested in what your setup will do to handling/stability. When are you going to have it on the road?