aftermarket vs OEM air filter

[xtremewlr]

Originally Posted by rmzalbar

Please excuse me butting in with a question, as my situation is similar to OP, just bought '02 with 22k miles - I rebuilt my front forks to take care of seals, bushings, pitting, and ancient fork oil. Do the springs and valving themselves go bad with age too? I didn't do anything there (except thoroughly clean.)

Put 3000-mile R6 shock on, so rear not an issue. Thanks!

You should not have any problems. Unless the bike has been overloaded for long periods, the springs and valving won't be affected by time or mileage. Maybe allot of mileage, way more than you have or will probably do on the bike.

[WDD]

Originally Posted by rmzalbar

Please excuse me butting in with a question, as my situation is similar to OP, just bought '02 with 22k miles - I rebuilt my front forks to take care of seals, bushings, pitting, and ancient fork oil. Do the springs and valving themselves go bad with age too? I didn't do anything there (except thoroughly clean.)

Put 3000-mile R6 shock on, so rear not an issue. Thanks!

Good for you - a lot of people forget about fork oil, and Gen 1 bushings are especially prone to wear.

My comments on fork springs was made because our OEM springs are way too soft for most. When the forks are apart for a good cleaning it is very easy to just put in new springs that have the correct weight - new springs don't really cost that much. Valving won't wear out, but you could spend $ for valving upgrade as well.

The rear shock also needs to be periodically serviced, and it also has a spring that is too weak for most FZ1 riders. The Gen 1 shock has a big advantage in that it can be rebuilt / revalved, as well as have a new spring put in by a shop relatively inexpensively. However, with your R6 shock you should be good to go.

[rmzalbar]

Yep - I'm 150 lbs, so I'm near the bottom of the range on the R6 shock and the middle of the range for the forks. If I ever end up getting cartridges in my forks, I may go up a step on the springs to match things up.

If my forks weren't pitted, I'd keep them for sure, but it's tempting to buy replacement tubes.. which makes me want to put that money into an R1 fork conversion instead.

[Wlfman]

Originally Posted by Sammax

I am debating going after market just because they are washable. K&N shows all the car part places around me (O'reillys, Advanced, maybe Autozone) are authorized dealers. May see what kinda price I can get from one of them.

Amazon.com best price for K&N filters....

[WDD]

Originally Posted by rmzalbar

Yep - I'm 150 lbs, so I'm near the bottom of the range on the R6 shock and the middle of the range for the forks. If I ever end up getting cartridges in my forks, I may go up a step on the springs to match things up.

If my forks weren't pitted, I'd keep them for sure, but it's tempting to buy replacement tubes.. which makes me want to put that money into an R1 fork conversion instead.

If the pitting isn't too bad, it can be polished out. I'd contact SportRyder (his real name is Lee) and ask him his advice. He works for Traxion, but even if you don't have him do the work for you he is a stand up guy and is a great help to this board with suspension questions. He has worked on the FZ suspensions for quite a while and is a wealth of information and advice.