Lowering my new ride

I picked up an 81 KZ440 in trade and I'm planning on using it as a pit bike/very local errand mobile. I'm planning on bobbing it and lowering it. Cutting the back up to the shock mounts, shorter shocks and basically stripping the crap out of it. I've built a couple of bikes when I was younger but never on a budget. To lower the front can I cut the springs in the tubes? I realize shortening will stiffen them and too much will result in bottoming out the front. I need shorter rear shocks and wondering if there's a good website or place to find shock dimensions so I can get cheap used rear shocks? TIA

Here's the Progressive Suspension tech catalog regarding the lengths and mounting eyes of all their rear shock units.

http://www.progressivesuspension.com/pdfs/7100-105.pdf

Yes, you can just cut your front coils. They are so long and have so many winds that the change in spring rate from cutting a few coils will be negligible.

You might find under the fork cap there could be preload spacers however removing them can make for strange rebound feeling.

Can you loosen the tubes in the triple tree and slide them up? Shorter shocks to lower the back.

Thanks for the responses. That progressive link is good but I'm looking for something that would have stock shocks from other bikes so I can buy some cheap used stuff from ebay. I can loosen up the trees and slide the tubes up but only an inch or two so I'll do that combined with shortening the inner springs a bit.

Right. Look up shocks of the length you want. Back search that part number to see what bikes used it. Ebay search for shocks for those bikes.

foxtrapper wrote: Right. Look up shocks of the length you want. Back search that part number to see what bikes used it. Ebay search for shocks for those bikes.

Duh..thanks. Caffeine has not taken effect yet. lol

As I recall you can't slide the tubes up to far as they'll hit the bars, However if your short in the reach area you could add some "Bar Backs" and gain clearance. Personally I hate the way bar backs make the steering feel but some people like it a lot

I can slide them up about 1-1.5". Yeah I had a bike with dog bones on it and they didn't stay on long. Cutting the springs isn't an issue. Since this bike will see very limited street use (maybe a couple of miles a week) ride quality isn't important. Loud, pipe scraping lowness and general stripped down coolness is.