I just bought and tested both the Progressive 944 Ultra Touring standard spring shocks and the Ohlins 3-3. Here is my review that might help others before they buy.

My stats. 5'6" 160lbs, 30 inch inseam. Wife is 125lbs. 90 percent ride solo, Ride without Tourpak 50 percent.

Motorcycle. 2014 Ultra Limited with HD premium front shocks lowered 1 inch.

What made me want to get shocks in the first place? I have a short inseam of 30 inches and wanted to get lower so when I replaced the front fork shock I had to find rear ones that matched. The stock OEM airshock was very smooth but would suddenly buck me out of my saddle or bottom out randomly no matter what setting I tried. You would also get unpredictable understeer and oversteer with the airshocks. So it was not a big deal to get out of the air shocks to me.

Review of 944 Ultra Touring Shock Vs. Stock Air shocks.
Pros: Easy to install 15 mins max. Good price point for shocks. Quality of materials very nice. Customer service was outstanding.
Cons: For my weight I knew I was in trouble when I tried to set the pre load for my weight and the shock all the way backed out would only sag 10mm, fully loaded with tourpak and 30lbs of gear. I should have gone with their lightest spring. Two up riding the sag was perfect but I would still get sudden jolts on bumps and the bike understeered like crazy. Faster I went the worse the jolts became. Rebound dampening was to heavy. Rather than putting more money into lighter springs I sold them. Progressive was very nice and tried to help me out the whole time. Extremely hard to make tight U turns or tight cornering due to massive understeer. Sometimes I would go into the other lane from cornering unable to correct in time while turning.

Ohlin 3-3 shock vs air shocks vs progressive.
Pros: Howard from motorcycle metal was just plain awesome. Customer service was on a whole other level. You have to fill out questionare and at first I was like really? and he made you study his website which I was like really? I almost gave up. Reading technical details about shocks puts me into automatic nap time mode. After 4th time of reading his website I started to understand his method. Every thing he is doing is custom from spring rates, to rebound dampening to compression dampening. There is no way he can just sell you a pair shocks unless you know what you want. After I got the shocks and installed them immediately I got 30mm sag and set them to his recommended 25.66 mm sag for the stroke of the shock to use 1/3. I then set the rebound dampening to 16 clicks from fully closed as a starting point.
I almost crapped my pants when I realized how good these shocks were on the bumpiest highway section I have by my house the bike floated on top of the bumps I was doing 101 mph by accident. You have to do 82 mph to not get killed on this highway normally and my progressive and airshocks would buck me around making me nervous on that same highway. I then took it to a scenic loop canyon where there were corners and was not expecting anything when I turned my first corner my line was much tighter. I thought it was a fluke but then after 10 corners I realized the bike was neutral steering and not understeering giving me huge confidence. A side effect of the lack of motion on the chasis from these shocks I noticed my wind buffetting was less because the windshield was not shaking as much as with my other two shocks. So are these shocks the holy grail of shocks? hell yes! Do not buy any shocks till you get a quote from Howard the price is within striking range of the progressives and you get a custom shock made to your weight and style of riding. Easy to install like progressives. I will always use these shocks from now on. The Ohlins 3-3 feels exactly like my 14 BMW R 1200RT on normal mode with handling and comfort.
Cons: I cant think of any. Other than having to learn about shocks and Howard making sure you understand what he posted for you to read. It was like taking an exam but I understand why now and he has made me smarter about shocks. To say custom shocks are in a whole different league is now understandable.

Off topic I am thrilled about the performance of the Premium HD fork upgrade. The combination of the Premium HD fork and Ohlin 3-3 are magical. So 3k dollars later I have the best suspension that I can ask for. Save yourself some money and talk to howard before you buy.

 

When you say "premium hd fork upgrade", are you referring to monotubes?

 

Yes Harley Davidson monotube front shock.

 

After reading Howards site at least 10 times I am still a complete idiot...LOLOL. One of these days I will call, but its daunting as I hate calling and wasting someones time. Coming from the sportbike side of the house, it was so much easier to set your sag and rebound and dampening on those bikes when compared to my street glide!! Anyhow, glad you are now digging your suspension!!

 

SI'm in the same boat. I have Howard's 30mm NIX cartridges in the front and they are amazing. I have 2A's in the back that just aren't right, but every time I've spoken to Howard, it seemed he didn't have time to talk, so I haven't bothered to call again. At some point I'll upgrade the rear to something else if I can't get these dialed in.

 

Let me try to explain it in laymans terms. Setting up your sag is pretty easy and is done in two parts.

Part 1: Determine 30 percent sag from your total shock stroke no matter what brand. This is done off the bike at the time of purchase. What you do is look at the shock specifications and see what the total amount of stroke is for the shock you are buying then multiply by .333. In my case the Ohlin 3-3 are listed as 77mm of stroke. So 30 percent sag would be .333x77mm=25.666mm sag target . That is your target sag number for that particular shock. So lets do another example Progressive Ultra touring shocks are listed as 81mm x .333= 26.97mm sag.

Part 2: After installing your shocks jack the rear wheel off the ground and measure from the top mounting nut flat spot to the bottom nut flat spot with a jumbo caliper. You can buy these 24 inch calipers from Amazon for 18 dollars or Harbor Freight. You can use a ruler or a tape measure. You can also pick the center to center measurement of the mounting bolts for the shock. Using calipers is just easier.

https://www.amazon.com/Grip-Jumbo-Al...jumbo+calipers

Make sure both shocks have their springs at the same height, meaning count the number of threads exposed so you have both shocks at the same level before you mount them for sag determination. With Ohlins I counted how many threads were exposed with Progressives I counted the indents.

After install of the shocks according to their instructions lift rear wheel off the ground using whatever jack you have, I used JS jacks. Measure from the top flat spot mounting nut and bottom flat spot mounting nut. Save that max extension number. In my case it was 31.5mm. Lower the bike and bounce on it couple of times. Have a friend or wife measure the same two spots again lets say the number comes out to be 29.5mm when you sit on it. Turn the spring tension clockwise to tighten the spring then remeasure again after bouncing on the shock to reset it. With my Ohlins one full turn total 2 mm of sag changed. Keep repeating until you get to 25.66 mm for the ohlin 3-3. For the progressive ultra touring your target is 26.97mm or an eye to eye measurement of 11.25 to 11.5 inches of sag.

If you sit on the bike and the you cannot even get the bike to sag 10mm with it backed out all the way the spring rate is to stiff and you have to get different springs to get the sag number you are looking for. That is what happened to me with the Progressives. All the way backed out they the eye to eye measurement was 11 inches.

Sag does not determine how soft a shock will ride it only determines the proper use of the shock stroke based on the weight of the bike and rider. Many people mistaken tightening the shock spring makes the shock harder and loosening the shock spring makes the shock softer when in fact you are just making the shock work outside its normal stroke. This is why a custom spring matched for your weight is crucial.

To get the best comfort you must have custom rebound dampening and custom compression dampening adjustments. Only you can decide what is good for you not any shock company they can only get you close enough for you to adjust to your comfort level. Guys like Howard will get you very close then you adjust for the remainder. Progressive tries to get you as close as they can but without proper adjustments you will most likely think they are not good enough and how can they be since they are trying to target for the masses or the average and if you fall outside that range you will not like the ride. That being said anything is better than the factory set up which is just a guessing game.

 

I found the opposite is true, every time I called Howard he kept me on the phone longer than I wanted. LOL. You must have a specific question or he will get frustrated. If the question is right he will talk your ear off.

 

Sometimes I get 2 or three people calling me at the same time, maybe one on hold and two I have to call back. I have a huge backlog of work, 5 forks, and 3 shock rebuilds. I have a chrome shock build and that is nothing but problems which takes massive amounts of time than another fork cartridge creation for a Softail Slim.

If you are calling in and no one is on the line it is not a matter of what I want to do. Frank, you are a whole lot of fun to talk with but listing to many people wanting to know where their shocks they just ordered an hour ago will be shipped so you get the idea. My life is not my own and I truelly wish I had another 48 hours in my day along with not having to waste all of that time eating, going to the bathroom, and sleeping. I have always enjoyed laughing with you Frank. I would actually like to go outside and look at the sun other than rushing off to get shop supply's and parts. I would actually like to sit at a table to eat also and not on my work bench. I do this 7 days a week since before New Years including Christmas eve & day. I am just busy so by, I got to go back to work now.

 

Not sure what's over or under steer you are referring to but we haven't have any problem making tight U turn or doing RLP skills like figure 8 over and over and over with any shocks which include both HD stock air 13" and 12" and same both premium hand adjustable shocks in either length or the 944 same both lengths and also with lowering blocks on wife's bike. We both ride very aggressively and still haven't found any in our HOG chapter about 200 members strong who wants to go cross country trips with us.

 

I get that, which is why I haven't bothered you since. When I have more money to send your way, I'll bug you again.