The Garage of Dumb Ideas: changing a Santa Cruz Megatower to a Hightower?

My two cents: I understand that the MT shares front triangle / parts with the Nomad, not the HT (the HT shares things with the Bronson). I’ve owned both. HT v3 was ‘mine’, warranty frame replacement on a v2 for fading paint) and MT v2 was my son’s (yes, very spoilt… though it’s sold now). I’m a kid who rode and raced mtb in the 90s and now in my 40s still wants a bike that’s optimised for going down (they’re all good at going up). The day I lost love for the HT was the day I rode the MT. HT has Lyrik fork at 160mm and SDU shock. MT had ZEB at stock 170mm and SDU coil with 65mm stroke (not stock 62.5 - 65 gives approx 170mm travel and is permitted per SC website). I tried almost everything to turn the HT into a mini MT (have read many times that many HT owners do this) including buying a Cascade link for the v2. I don’t think it can be - the HT gets overwhelmed in the rough and/or repeated hits (is it the high anti-squat, someone better qualified than me will tell you but the changes to the anti-squat on the new HT and Bronson support this). As NSMB put it - the HT is the Subaru of bikes… okay at everything but not great at anything. Subarus are practical but boring (I know, I own one…). I don’t want my bike to be like that, and so I wouldn’t try to turn a bike that’s built to go down (faster and/or safer but either way ‘funner’) into one that’s build to do everything okay. Have fun working it out though, planning the new bike and messing with ideas is part of the fun. 

For a start you wouldn't have to buy a new fork or shock. 

Just buy a 160mm airspring to put in the 170mm fork to lower the travel, the shock you can put a spacer and make it a 230x60 as well (at least you should be able to) so it won't cost a lot of money.

The rear geo won't change, as you just changed the shocks travel, not its total length. Dropping the fork 10mm will steepen the head angle by 0.5, increase reach by ~4mm and drop the BB by ~5mm.

You can also just increase pressures in fork and shock to make it firmer and ride like a shorter travel bike. 

😂😂😂😂 I was thinking of doing something similar with my nomad v6, I just bought a new zeb that I could only get in 160mm in stock, I was gonna buy a new air spring and thought why not throw it on as is, I have a 60mm stroke shock somewhere I could throw on and try too.

Personally before making any changes see if with the longer travel you can get away with lighter tires with maybe a lightweight insert in the rear for a bit of rim protection.  I find that if I ride medium travel bikes I need dh tires and a heavy insert in the rear which essentially brings the weight right back to where a long travel bike with appropriate trail tires is.  No replacement for displacement.

In 2023/2024 Santa Cruz basically had 4 different front triangles for their full suspension bikes. The Blur and the Tallboy got their own frames respectively, but the Hightower, Bronson and 5010 shared a front triangle, as did the Megatower and Nomad. Hightower/Bronson/5010 and Megatower/Nomad front triangles are very similar, but they are not the same. Your idea of swapping linkages and the rear triangle will probably not work.

That being said, increased suspension travel doesn't really weigh anything and doesn't necessarily make a bike feel more "wallow-y" or less efficient. So my recommendation to make the Megatower a bit more manageable would be to maybe just leave the frame as is and set up the susension a bit more firm.

I considered doing something similar to my Nomad 6 (short stroking fork & shock) to try and make it more like a Bronson, and in the end I just added pressure.  The geo between the N6 and current Bronson is essentially the same, so I didn't want to change that, just make it less squishy on easier trails.  I'm not saying it's the right way to go about it, but what I did for changing pressure was checked what the RS Trailhead app suggested for a 160 vs. 170 fork at the same weight.  It turned out to be 10 psi higher in my case (58->68 psi).  I then figured out what percentage increase in pressure my fork went up by, and applied that to my shock.  It worked surprisingly well, the suspension stayed balanced front/rear.  I didn't mess with tokens or anything.  What appeals to me about doing this method is it's easy to make it squishier again for rowdier trails (just takes 10 minutes and a shock pump), and even if I don't bother changing pressure, the extra travel is still there if I botch a line or landing.

Here is the "Tallest Boy" I built a few years back.

TB4 with cascade link, 7.5 x 2.0 coil shock, and 150mm fork. Geo is basically the same as the current HT3 but with a more progressive leverage curve and less extreme reach/stack. Rear travel is around 147mm. 

It is a ripper, so good with the coil shock!