I'm super excited about my 49mm fork conversion. This has been in the works for months. I contacted Howard from Motorcycle Metal about his 49mm fork kit. Just as most on the forums said, he knows his stuff! At first I was doing this in two stages but, I only want to do it once, and do it right. I have Howard's triple trees, and his custom 25mm CP cartridge internals, the only mod I've done was to have the top tree anodized black. The fork tubes needed modification by carefully chucking them in a lathe to mill off the Showa check valve, they peen it over on the tube so you need to mill off, or grind, whatever works for you. Here are pictures of the fork tubes, the valve, and finally the assembly, these pic's are not mine but represent what needs to be done. The completed assembly is my set ready to go. Lucky I'm not the first to install so I expect it to go smooth. More to follow.....

 

You will love it, I running them and the #6 shocks in the rear. This is the best system going.

 

Looks awesome! Wish I could pull the trigger on that setup...

 

Tj316
I read everything about these, your experience racing and street riding really pushed me into correcting the things that are seriously overlooked on HD's, I'm not able to ride the GSXR's of the past anymore, so I'm making this as close to a great handling machine as possible, it's a lot of fun to rip around corners and have the young kids say 'holy sh@t guy, you were smoking' puts a grin on my face. Howard is an engineering genius, this is some set up, and really transforms older touring bikes. I always wondered why HD's came with pogo sticks for suspension, these bikes sell at a premium price new. I know 2017-18 models are incrementally better than air shocks and Cessna landing gear struts.

 

Looks like a work of art......!

I was seriously saving to get these for my '12 Limited. However fate intervened, I traded the '12 for a '16...

Since I got the 49mm forks now, the money I have saved will get me rear shocks from Howard for the '16, shortly followed by the Ohlin cartridges for the front....

I assume you ate going to document the install in this thread....? If so, I look forward to it.

Good luck with the install.

 

Nice job, I'm also still riding my sportbikes and know I can't do much to move 800+lbs of HD faster, but at least I can make it handle better. I've seen Ohlins FGRTs on a few touring bikes in magazines.