fork tuning for enduros

well i guess i'll be adding a lot of BV shims then won't i!!!!

closed fork - yeh i'd like them but i am working with the original gear to see what can be done with them. i don't have the money.

thanks for your interest. the 13 is still awaiting fitment.

regards

Taffy

i have to learn as i go lew! you may have done it years ago and you're down to small and subtle changes. i have to learn. what i will say in my defence is that we have early darkness, poor weather and nowhere to practice up here. if i was near an acre of scrub down in the mid-west all would be roses in the garden! ok cacti!! but you get ma drift donchya!

it would appear that if i had two more face shims as you suggest and i put one of my 16/17 back in we are not so far apart - but only on the BV! but you wouldn't be lew if you weren't controvercial!!!

the problem as i see it with the ZP3 mod is that he himself started with 23, 23, 18, 13. now if you think i'm very soft he was 'left of field' as you septics call it! i have also got to say that Per, (viking) who i respect completely as a suspension tech, has said that less than 1.4mm float and i was going to suck shims through.

so far i have not even bent a shim so the float is still going down, the MV is getting stronger, oil level going up and in general so is the BV. tom might be a part timer like me but he has come to the conclucion also that a 2-stage BV is needed, especially with the ZP3 mod.

a lot of people cheat by looking at other forks and then pretend to be some kind of guru! or wait until someone who has put up a nugget of info, has passed on, and then re-introduce it as their own wise words of wisdom.

i sat infront of the fire friday night going through all 23 sheets of fork info trying to work out WTF happened at the beginning for me to not to get full travel? i had 155 air gap, hardly any shims in anywhere and still had 2" unused. and this was with the 46s!

i can't tell you how i got to gradually use that space up? all i can say is that i added some oil, i opened the compression clickers, drilled the BCs and over three weeks i used 5mm more each week. weird! is it any wonder that your shimming is all over the show when suddemly someone says: "drill your bottoming cones like this..." you do it and suddenly your raison d'etre is accomplished! shimming o yeh! now let's get back to shimming!

if someone handed me forks with the 17cm mod done, the right BCs, the right, TOs the three drilled holes in the BPs and the right preload YES I WOULD CONCENTRATE ON THE SHIMMING. but why do you think that valentino rossi is always testing suspension? it's because everytime he nearly gets there they give him a grippier tyre and more power just to phuq it up again! so i'm never gonna have just shimming to do am i?

you say do one thing at a time and it's true to say that at the beginning i didn't but i am now! i was miles off so i made big changes, then i got into the zone and i'm slowing down as i get nearer.

the reason at the moment i run 1 x 24 at the face is so that i get some dipping on braking and entering (for which i got a 6 month suspended sentance! LOL!!!) so you should in a way say; 'ok what's happening from after the 14? maybe 3 x 24 here would be good?'

it's only in this past two rides that i have been really happy with the forks and feel i'm getting close. i did feel that way last year and then rode a fast track and they were awful. lesson learnt. i then was chuffed again with them and then changed the frame and had to start all over again!

the free mods, as they were done have all done something for the bike. something better! and surely 'suspension'' and dip' can be seperated slightly?

in the absense of any greater knowledge i'm afraid we have to find these things out for ourselves and if i did EVERYTHING you've suggested above i would, quite frankly, give up. i'm not starting again! i am where i am and each time i ride i get a different result, come up with different problems, have to find different solutions.

last week, i added a 16 and 17 to the BV and i felt that i lost 'dip' entering corners, i rode over the berms but i was riding in 10" of wet mud and couldn't trust the front tyre. were my results valid? not sure. do i carry on trying to suspend the bike better whilst this problem remains unsolved or do i try different settings to get the front down a bit for corners whilst maintaining what i have?

so during this week i swopped out the 16 and 17 and added a 13 to the MV. if i get about the same suspension and have the dip back then i have done the job and learnt something.

could go straight to NOST or gold valves but i'd rather try my best with the original stuff. it appears that the BV pistons can REALLY be replaced yet there are still plenty that continue to use the OEMs. PMK for instance. is he doing it so that he continues R & D for his customers or because the OEM can be made to work?

i am hard up, i'll admit it. and my money goes on many things lew. my bike started with 28bhp and is now on 42 with more to come. i am a man of many talents!

so i won't be throwing the baby away with the bathwater mate.

ok?

regards

Taffy

RE: Deltas=Deltas is NOT true!

i have been testing with the bottom pistons drilled. i flipped them over and drilled into each port once with a 1.5mm drill bit.

it brought the forks back to having plenty of 'dip' on entering corners. the idea is that you increase the free bleed under breaking where the bike is slower to compress than when it hits a bump. some of the problem waas that the float is now down to .95mm.

the bike also seemed to glide over bumps and gave just a little less feedback. i'll let you know about the shimstack i've been trying since soon.

regards

Taffy

oops! sorry! i merely turned them over so that i was drilling the side with the small triangles 'proud'.

sorry to disappoint.

actually i'll carry on here and explain what i've been doing.

i was running
24, 24, 14, 24, 24, 22, 20, 18, 15, 11, [email protected]
23, 23, 22, 20, 18, 16, 14
float 1.05mm
120 airgap

tried the drilling and the bike was like velvet with nice dip at the corners. bike was superb, almost using too much travel for a woodland circuit and almost too good as tiny bumps were completely unfelt.

i removed one of the first two 24s and added 17 and 16 between the 15 - 11. this stiffened things nicely!

then added a 13 to the base of the MV which also lowered the float to .095mm. this gave the heels of my hands a thump so i've pulled that. travel is fully used.

so i had the taps machined and now have removed the 22 from the MV as well (kinda copying dangeroo0 here) but the float is still .95mm as a start. i've lowered the air gap to 115mm as well.

to finish
24, 14, 24, 24, 22, 20, 18, 17, 16, 15, 11, [email protected]
23, 23, 20, 18, 16, 14
.95mm float
115mm air gap.
2mm preload

sags are 46mm and 68mm front.

i really like this setup and will see how it goes as it differs little from a previous (just a MV 22 removed and 5mm added to oil level) test.

regards

Taffy

h yes sir!

i really enjoy the full travel ....

i'm learning as i go?

regards

Taffy

i think that i may haver the MV about where i want it now. the BV may well need stiffening. the thing i find difficult is the fact that i'm only riding my bike competitively and have nothing to compare it too. i'm by no means the guru of suspension just someone looking to share information and improve things as i go.

i get the feeling that one 46 spring might help but i can honestly say that i rode far quicker when i fitted the 48s. one could argue that the fork damping was too soft and therefore the springs covered a basic mistake but it did feel far quicker with them and that was good enough for me.

i get the feeling that it'll require 24, 24, 14, 24, 24 before too long. my problem is a lack of money and the fact that i'm racing far more infrequently now than just two years ago. then you put in that i'm 46 near 47 and it makes the testing that much tougher.

i'm suprised that there aren't a few other members here at UHE testing and trying things out though.

regards

Taffy

Smorgasbord said:

You may be old, but you are not dead yet, are you?

Regards

Click to expand...

ha! ha! not the last time i checked anyway!!!!!

i have to check what i have done first. i'm a believer in

finding out for myself
learning the whole picture
then going for the right answer

so i'm not panicking! i do absorb all that is said.

funnily enopugh it#s not the shims that are interesting me but the float gap.....

regards

Taffy

Smorgasbord said:

Cavitation can be felt like an unexplained thump or someone knocking on your handlebar with a plastic hammer. Especially during drop rebound (high speed). It removes rebound damping during the first part of the rebound. If it is severe you get it at compression too. You have to look for it or it can go undetected, but gives a general harsh feeling that is hard to explain. What really surprised me when experimenting with my fork was that it got less harsh when more shims than oem were used, it even felt smooth. If your BV is too weak or the MV is too hard in ANY speed range you will have cavitaton.

Regards

Click to expand...

smorgy

i said that the only change i made at all was to fit the 13 to the MV. that reduced the float from 1.05mm to 0.95mm AND THAT'S ALL I DID. sorry if i didn't say that the results i offered were in seperate tests!

so, i figure that my MV is where i want it with the 13 out and now also with the 22 out making it very similar to Dangeroo0 who has odds to my evens under the 23s. 24, 24, 21, 19, 17, 15, etc etc.

i consider the BV to be the 'units' and the MV to be the 'tens' as i was taught at school! i certainly don't think it's 10 to 1 but you get my drift!

now, as for the almost '3-stage' stack you offer, i simply wouldn't get involved in that till i understood the 'balance of the shimstack' by testing. that would be a single-stage and at max: a 2-stage.

still can't get over how i phuqed up the float gap. measured at .95 i had .3 removed from the piston's shoulder on the tap. i then removed the 22 and the 13 worth .2 yet ended with a larger gap of 1.0 (i had said .95 to flatter myself) again?????

having rebuilt it i'll live with it. float has grown from .95 to 1.0, MV has lost a 22 and a 13 and finally 115mm air gap.

nice thing is i can"'tie, rope and brand" her at the track from here at just the BV.

ROWDEY YATES WOULD BE PROUD OF ME

GET 'EM IN RAW HHHHHIIIIIIIDDDE!!!!

RAW HIDE!

someone PM'd me and said that i never mentioned the clickers.

that's right. i don't!

if i don't like a fork how it is i change it at the shimstack when i get home. i've found that the only clicker i use is the compression for checking travel 'ability'.

regards

Taffy

smorgy

when you go off at an angle you really do donchya! i can't start in the middle of nowhere again! i'm in serious need of some skiing this weekend in italy and then head down for a few weeks.

regards

Taffy