Posted Bydaveinbike Modifications,Mechanics,Ninja 250 Specific,Resources,Shorty Guide

Lowering your Ninja 250R – 2008

Posted by Dave in Bike Modifications, Mechanics, Ninja 250 Specific, Resources, Shorty Guide

By Dave: We selected the Roaring Toyz handle bar raisers and lowering links to for this lowering project. The Roaring Toyz components gave us the balance of flexibility, cost and quality we were looking for to ensure Jezebel was both safe and lowered enough to improve Victoria’s stance at stops and confidence during slow speed maneuvers. The project is fairly straight forward, and the majority of the time will be spent making adjustments to the height of the bike to ensure the best fit. Overall, I would rate the difficulty of this change as a 5 out of 10, for someone with moderate mechanical ability. With the right tools, and a couple of extra hands, it’s a nice afternoon modification (depending on whether you run into any issues, it can take between 30mins-2hours).

What You Will Need

1) Stand for your bike 2) Floor or car jack 3) 19mm and 17mm Wrenches 4) 19mm and 17mm Ratchets 5) Torque wrench 6) Philips screw driver 7) Set of Allen Keys

Our Tools Jack/Stands

We picked up a Motomaster motorcycle jack for about $100.00 at Canadian Tire. Learn from our mistake and make sure to check the frame and orientation of the bars on the stand, and how it’ll fit on your bike – you don’t want to lift the bike by the engine or exhaust system, you want to be lifting it by the frame. While this jack is perfect for my Vulcan 900, it’s the wrong orientation for a Ninja 250R. We had to get creative and turn the jack 90 degrees so we could lift the bike by the frame and not the engine or put pressure on the exhaust system. Next time we will get some metal bars to run perpendicularly across the jack to ensure a sturdy and easy process to raise the bike. A handy feature of this jack, is that it has a fairly wide base and it locks when you jack it up. This is important for safety, so if you get a motorcycle jack, check for these features, and make sure you lift the bike on level ground. Unfortunately, there is no way to lock the wheels on the jack so you need to be careful it doesn’t roll away on you, We suggest wedging some blocks under it for added security.

A car jack can be really handy once you have the bike raised. It will help you take pressure off the bolts that you need to remove. Since there were two of us working on the mod, we just lifted the rear tire to remove and replace the bolts as needed (warning, the bike weighs 300lbs that you’d be lifting). If you are going solo on this mod (I recommend working with someone anytime you lift your bike as you never know when/if something might go wrong), you will want a jack to help out. Most car jackswill be just fine.

Wrenches, Ratchets, Allen Keys and Screw Drivers

Nothing special here, we had generic tools. If you are going to be doing a lot of your own maintenance, invest in a good set of tools. They will pay off in the long run.

Torque Wrench

A lot of people out there don’t mention the torque wrench when they post their How tos… its important that the bolts are tightened properly. This will lessen the chance of the bold coming loose, or damaging the components by over tightening. We picked up a simple torque wrench for under $30.00 at Canadian Tire. The scale on this wrench was for up to 150 foot pounds of torque, more than enough for this project.

STEP 1: Removing the Side Fairings

We decided to remove the side fairings to improve access to the existing links and rear shock. It is likely possible to change the links without removing the fairings, but we didn’t want to run the risk of damaging them during the modification. The Roaring Toyz site says to remove the side covers and fairings. You don’t need to remove the side covers – we didn’t. 1) (A) Remove three black plastic rivets by pushing in on the centre and pulling straight out. They can be a little sticky if they are dirty so you may want to clean them first. Then (B) remove the fairing mounting screws and (C) the mounting Allen bolts 3) Remove the fairing carefully, as your signal lights are still connected! It will take a bit of wiggling but if you pull it off in a motion that goes from the front of the bike to the back (rather than away from the bike), you should be able to get it off. You may hear a little snap, that’s where the plastics snap together, don’t be alarmed! Disconnect the signal light connectors (A). There is a little clip that if you press on the side closest to the bike it will release the wire from the signal light. It is kind of like a miniature teeter-totter.

4) Make sure to set the fairings down on a smooth surface, inside facing down so you don’t scratch them.

This is Jezebel after removing her side fairings. She's nekkid!

STEP 2: Replacing the Stock Tie Rods/Links

1) We jacked the bike up to get the rear tire about two inches off the ground. We were careful to raise the bike using the frame, and not the engine or exhaust system. This took a little effort with the jack I had chosen. If you are using a jack, make sure to either lock it, or use blocks to keep your bike in position.

2) Lift or jack up the rear tire to remove any tension from the rear shock. This will take some adjusting as you get to the bolt removal stage. Just be careful not to raise it too much, putting pressure on the suspension and potentially making the bike unstable.

3) On the brake side, using a 19mm socket and a 17mm wrench, remove the bottom bolt (A). You may need to adjust the height of the rear wheel to allow the bolt to slide out smoothly. Then do the same with the top bolt (B). There is a metal sleeve that is inside the shock and Rocker Arm, just be careful that these do not come out when you remove the bolts. If they slide some, just push them back into place. Use another person to help secure the bike while you remove the lowering links and bolts. When you do this, the swing arm will pivot so that the front end moves down. Lifting up on the wheel will help to get it back into position when you replace the new links.

4) Place the Roaring Toyz lowering link in place on the right hand (brake) side of the bike first, and feed the top bolt through. The single hole should be at the top of the link, then place the second link on the right side of the bike and lightly place the nut on the end of the bolt. Do not tighten it just yet as you will need to move the links to get them in place for the bottom bolt. There are rubber seals that go around these bolts, make sure they don’t fall out and get forgotten. They need to be in place when you reassemble the suspension.

5) Since the new links are slightly longer than the OEM links, you will need to lower the rear wheel slightly to align the bolt with the appropriate hole. We chose the 4th hole from the top. This lead to about a 3.5″ drop in the rear of the bike, and a 2” drop in the seat height. This image shows you what each hole will drop the suspension (rear of the bike) by. These numbers do not correspond to seat height! The bike is essentially a triangle, so you drop the rear, the seat will go down, but not by the same amount (hence us lowering the rear by 3.5 resulted in a 2″ drop in seat height).

these are the drop heights of the suspension (the back of the bike). NOT the seat.

6) Feed the lower bolt through both links and the shock and finger tighten the bolts.

7) Now that the bolts are in place you will need to tighten them to 44 foot pounds of torque.

8) Remove the jack holding up the rear wheel, and replace the side fairings

9) Double check the torque on your bolts.

Lowering the Front End

It may sound strange that you need to use handle bar raisers to lower your front end, but it is necessary to create additional space where the handlebars mount to slide the front shocks higher up, ultimately lowering your front end. Most kits will only get you a total of a one inch drop on the front end. 1) Place a jack under the front wheel to support the suspension.

2) Using an Allen key, unto the bolts holding the handle bars in place (C)

3) Place the handle bar risers where the handle bars had been fastened, and then place the handle bars on them, running the bolts that came with the risers (they are about 1” longer) and tighten them to 18 foot pounds of torque.

4) Loosen the upper and lower fork clamp bolts on both sides of the bike, and slide the suspension upwards using the jack. It should move about one inch.

5) Tighten the upper and lower bolts to 15 footpounds of torque on the upper and 22 foot pounds of torque on the lower.

6) Lower your bike and check the torques on all bolts.

7) Test your bike for fit.

Important! Things to Watch Out For:

Kick Stand

Since we lowered Jezebel about 2.5” overall we will need to either buy a new kickstand that is a little shorter (runs around $100.00) or have the kickstand cut and re-welded ($30.00 – $50.00) at a shop. This is important since the lowered bike will stand very upright with the stock kickstand, possibly making it prone to tipping over. It can also make it almost impossible to park on even the slightest of incline so if you are lowering your bike more than 2 inches, you need to a shortened stand.

Clearance

Using lowering links to lower your bike moves the whole bike lower, including the suspension. This can dramatically lessen your ability to drive over rough terrain, ramps, and may keep you from carrying passengers. You have to be careful when riding over speedbumps as you may scratch the bottom of your bike, being unable to clear them – avoid them if you can.

Tire Rubbing on the Fender

This method of lowering your bike will also reduce the space between the rear fender and tire. This is particularly important if you are heavier set, or taking a passenger, but should be monitored by anyone who’s lowered their bike with links. If you have your rear suspension set to a very low pre-load, you should increase it to 3 or 4 if you are lowering your bike more than 2 inches give or take… We ended up increasing the preload to 6 as we found that the tire lightly rubbed on the fender. We didn’t want to raise the bike, but we were lucky and the added preload keeps the tire off the fender even with a 200 pound guy bouncing on the back seat (which is a good way to see if you’ll be alright – just get someone bouncing on the back seat while you watch to see if the tire and fender touch). We are monitoring this very closely as it could cause the back tire to lock up in extreme cases. If it continues to be an issue, we will raise her by one hole, resolving the problem. There will be no passengers on Jezebel due to this. Tip: Put a piece of tape in the underside, in that space between the fender and tire, on the fender. Go for a ride, and then get off and check the tape. If it’s untouched – you’re fine. If, however, it shows scuffs from the tire touching it, you need to increase your suspension pre-load. Remember to check this before taking a passenger if you intend to. Weight on the pillion seat will definitely affect the space between the tire and fender.

Change in Handling

Since we are moving away from the stock geometry of the bike (2.5” to 3” drop in the rear and only 1” drop in the front), the handling did change some. This would be more noticeable to a seasoned rider than a new rider, but it is something to keep in mind, and you may need time to adjust to the new handling.

Re-Torquing

After you get out on the road for a day, double check all bolts that you tightened during this project. Sometimes bolts loosen and its better to catch them before they cause a major problem like an accident.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in to comments. A poster on the Kawi Forums did another great How-To for lowering links with tons of photos, and another poster did one for installing the handlebar raisers.