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Home > Departments > PEP Shocks

The Shocking Truth
PEP Shocks
Why All the Fuss?

With about 80% of the nation's top ATV pro racers using PEP undefined

shocks, we knew they had to be pretty good shocks. But why are they so special? What does Wayne Mooradian and Mark Baldwin of Performance Engineered Products do to these babies that make them the chosen favorites by so many professionals? For the answers to these questions we sat in with Wayne and Mark Baldwin, as they fabricated and rebuilt shocks. After observing them at work, we had the chance to bolt a new pair on our '88 250R and experience them for ourselves.

Performance Engineered Products was formed 16 years ago when Wayne Mooradian recognized the need for better "race-equipped" ATV suspensions. His background in motorsports is rather impressive. From the 1970's to early '80's, Wayne turned wrenches for over 30 factory motorcycle racers. Not many motorcycle mechanics can say they were the factory race team mechanic for the Maico, Can-Am, Suzuki, Husqvarna, and Yamaha motorcycle racing teams. Wayne was also part of the research and development team that propelled a dominating win-record for the most successful factory motorcycle racing team of the '80's - Team Honda! His credentials don't just exist in motorcycle racing. Wayne developed all of the suspension components for the 1985-86 factory Kawasaki three wheelers of Jimmy White. In '87-88 he developed the suspension products for the Team Suzuki Quad Racer's of Gary Denton, Rodney Gentry, Jeff Watts, and Jim Putnam. During the same season, Wayne built suspension systems for the Kawasaki Mojave's and Tecate 4's of the Team Green support riders of Jackie Meadows and Charlie Shepherd. In the late '80's he developed the motors, chassis, and suspension for the Honda desert ATV team. As you can see from Wayne's list of accomplishments, there's plenty of proven knowledge found in every PEP shock.

Four years ago, the overwhelming demand for his performance shocks became too great, and PEP Associates came to the rescue. The biggest is Nac's Racing and Baldwin Motorsports. Wayne has shared all of his shock-building knowledge with Mark Baldwin of Baldwin Motorsports. Now Baldwin is not only responsible for new shocks, but his facility is also the sole authorized service center for PEP shocks on the East Coast.

Now, both West and East Coasts have facilities to build and service the performance shocks. Even with the two facilities working full time, there is at least a 4-6 week wait for customers. That's just how great the demand is for PEP's custom shocks.

PEP Shock Service:

Both PEP's East and West Coast facilities offer complete shock service and revalving. Let's face it with all the abuse an ATV shock goes through, it's just a matter of time before it needs servicing. (Changing the oil in a shock is not servicing the shock.) When you send a shock into a PEP authorized service center you get more than the oil changed. The service includes disassembling the shafts, valving, pistons, reservoirs, hoses, and bladders.

After everything is disassembled, the shims are checked for splits. The piston faces are looked over for pits (this results in a lack of damping). All the clicking mechanisms are checked on the compression and rebound knobs and the shafts are checked for pitting. Metering rods are checked for even the slightest tolerance of being worn or bent. Anything found damaged is replaced, adjusters are inspected, cleaned and greased. In the last step, seals and bushings are replaced and the final inspections and assembly are completed. This detailed commitment goes into every shock that is sent in for service. The result is a shock that comes back to you just as it was when you first got it. In fact you probably won't recognize your old shock when it comes back to you! PEP will revalve and service any shock. So before you label your stock shocks as completely shot give PEP a call. Prices for shock service and modification depend on what is found when they take the shock apart. Basic prices are as follows:

Revalving $150- $175 per shock
Springs (if needed) $90- $110 per shock
General service of $85 for a pair of fronts and $75 for a rear.

How'd we like them?
We had abused ourselves and our Honda Fourtrax long enough, it

was time for some real suspension. We took the advice of Wayne Mooradian to get our shocks from his east-coast distributor and right hand man, Mark Baldwin. With all the answers supplied to Mark Baldwin's questions, he suggested a pair of Limited Mass shocks for the front, and a shock modification service to our stock rear shock.

For an accurate evaluation of the PEP shocks, our idea was to test them on a track with as many suspension-jarring obstacles as possible. The terrain consisted of two huge whoop sections at 100 yards each, a double jump, two small single jumps and one monstrous jump. With two test riders and a stopwatch, we were ready for some serious ground-pounding.

Our test riders rode as fast as they possibly could for ten laps each using the stock front shocks and the new re-worked rear shock. Our riders noticed the beefier rear shock worked better than a stock one, but couldn't get a good feel for the rear since the wimpy front shocks were working so poorly. Out of the ten laps, each rider's best times were taken from their third lap, which was 2:43 and 2:48. An interesting note here was that lap times near the end of the 10 lap sessions consistently got worse. Since the course consisted of mostly whoops, the suspension was constantly being worked. The oil in the stock front shocks would get hot and thin to a lower viscosity, resulting in a "pogo-stick" effect on the quads front end.

Now came the fun part. No other changes would take place except for bolting on the new PEP Limited Mass front shocks. After fighting to decide who would ride first, we were ready to see what kind of difference the PEP shocks would make.

Lap times would tell the whole story. Both riders put over ten laps in with their best times of 2:31 and 2:33! That's a total of 12 and 15 seconds faster from their best times with the front stockers. Judging from the data we collected in our day of testing, we calculated that the new PEP shocks were able to cut an average of 9.8 seconds off of each lap!

The test riders said that they were able to shift to a higher gear in the long demanding whoop sections. The front of the quad swallowed up every whoop like it was only half the size that it really was. And as for landing from the big air jump on the course, nearly every landing with the stock fronts resulted in an extreme bottoming out--near crash experience. With the PEP front shocks, not once did the suspension bottom out! Most notable about the PEP shocks was that the shocks barely even got warm to the touch, while the stockers could barely be touched from severe heat build up.

The price for our new PEP suspension wasn't cheap. Simply put, you get what you pay for. Yes PEP shocks are expensive, but we strongly feel that they're well worth the money. Our overall recommendation is to ride a 4-wheeler that has PEP shocks. This article simply can't describe what a "hands-on" experience can. Even though your size and weight will probably be different than the rider whose quad you will be trying, you will get a good idea of just how awesome these shocks really are.