The bike feels very planted, no more wavy motion on bumpy roads. No more sinking motion when I lift the bike of its side stand.
Bhpian shonith recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Replaced my rear suspension with dominar one.
Rear suspension had gradually failed to the point it was bottoming out at preload set to 8 with my weight 72kg doing about 60~70km/hr on the highway. Bike would sink down while lifting from the side stand. The oil seal wasn’t busted. I didn’t see a point in increasing the preload above 8 as it makes the bike a bit unpredictable in the corners.
I was looking for a replacement shock a few grabbed my attention and i screwed buying one as well,
1. RR 310 bto shock, fully adjustable at 10k, it was a bit expensive and this would also increase the height which i didn’t want.
2. 2024 390 duke, i ordered one only to find out its more than an inch long. In the quest to fix it to the bike i have damaged the shock as well.
3. Ns200 shock i was keen to try, at little over 3k it was probably the cheapest alternative plus the nitrogen gas reservoir meant that the shock’s compression and rebound would behave the same even with extended riding.
I didn’t want to get the same WP shock again. Nor the adjustable shock from the adv 390 only to grind a portion of the mounting point plus the increase in height would further make the seat more inclined.
So ns200 shock seemed like a logical replacement for me. Thanks to BHPian b16h22 for sharing his experience of replacing his shock with the ns one, you can read about it here,
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor…ml#post5667267
However, present ns200 shock is different and are not a direct fit on ktm. Visited my FNG and asked Rajesh if we could fit it, after digging a bit we came to know that people are replacing the ns200 shock with dominar’s. We visited supreme bajaj service centre and asked them if we could see both ns and dominar shock, they agreed, it seemed that the free length of both are the same. Even the eyelet width was the same. And we felt we could fit it on ktm. We got the shock and proceeded to fit it. Part number is JF122069 cost 3190/-. Got to love bajaj and their pricing! A quick google search will reveal that this shock belongs to dominar 400UG 2019-2020 model this is the 2nd gen.
Few numbers,
Ns200 has a rear suspension travel of 90mm.
Dominar has 110mm.
Both cost the same!
390 duke has 150mm.
During installation checked the free lenght of stock and dominar’s, this was found to be same as well.
Installing this shock in the same orientation as it is on the dominar would require to grind a portion of the swing arm’s shock mounting point (same with the present ns shock). I didn’t want this. So we flipped the shock only to find that the top eyelet is touching the frame just a little bit and the bolt hole wasn’t matching. Rajesh felt he could grind the eyelet just a little bit to clear the frame. We grinded about 0.5mm and it fit as expected.
Portion where the shock touches the frame.
I rode about 70kms and on roads where the ktm shock would feel really bad. The ride is night and day different. Preload is set at 3 with 6 being the max and the sag is just right for my weight (72kg). The bike feels very planted, no more wavy motion on bumpy roads. No more sinking motion when i lift the bike of its side stand. This suspension has better rebound than the stock so the ride feels more comfortable, no more painful behinds on bad roads. Stock suspension would offset the bike mid corner on a bump this doesn’t happen on the new shock.
Suspension just clears the air box and frame
To set the sag i followed this,
https://youtu.be/ZtzTyCKh5fY?si=i2LjJYntpiT13Asd
Sag for my weight at preload 8 on ktm shock for reference,
Case on Dominar Shock to Preload 3,
Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
