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Increasing travel

Beaut!

The gallery link in the dirtbikeworld post doesn't work anymore - Is this the gallery in question?: http://husaberg.org/gallery/v/Members/b ... nic/forks/

And the cartridge extensions are the light-gray aluminium pieces just right of center in this pic, right?:

cart_ext_002.jpg


Makes a whole lot of sense once you see it after reading about it back and forth.
 
there is still a lot to be gained without the extensions

10mm to gain by letting the forks compress further

4mm to gain by putting a washer between the bottoming cone and the cartridge (see pic above)

about 12mm to gain by using a different top out spring

to let them compress further take the steel bits off the spring guides lower end and re machine the plastic part shorter

check clearance BV to MV stems at bottoming, top of chrome tube to fork cap on bottoming, dust seal to lower axle lug on bottoming. also wheel to mudguard and headers, some contact here is OK IMHO, its only rubber

also check coil bind of the main springs, work out how tall they are at coil bind by measuring, measure length as installed... calculate usable travel. the OEM 4.4s have a lot of usable travel .. really really good springs
 
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Just to try to wrap my head around it - if you use the same rate springs, the sag distance is the same, and to keep the bike's geometry, you raise the forks in the yoke? And the newly available travel is all compressive travel?

And - do we know if a similar operation could be performed on the conventional Showa forks on my DR-Z? - I'll investigate this in spring when i have my DR-z forks apart for a revalve and midvalve installation.

And - as I understand it we're talking +40mm of travel or more, all in all?
 
Im going to try a few things next time I have my forks apart. Have the SXS service kit on order as well as a bunch more shims for the smaller mid/reb.

I can handle modifying the spring guide. Im not sure the best bet on the top out spring. Thinking of just cutting it down. I saw mention of a clutch spring, any other ideas? If I can get 20mm more travel I think it will be plenty.
 
yes Id aim for 20mm increase without cartridge extensions

you can get 322mm travel out of the 08 cartridge if you want to

its tricky to compare to my forks because my MV stem is longer so I needed a bigger cartridge extension

a lot of people balk at the idea of changing geometry

1) making the forks travel 10mm further in by shortening the spring guide does not effect the geometry unless you have bottomed out

2) if you run 8mm preload and then extend the forks 8mm but now run zero preload nothing has changed geometry wise

3) the important thing with geometry is dynamic ride height (when you ride the bike) and that depends on so many variables its ridiculous. you can change preloads valving, oil volume and oil viscosity to alter the dynamic ride height.

so there is at least 16mm of travel to gain for most people without changing a thing about the geometry

beyond that you can within reason "easily" get back 10mm of dynamic ride height by just changing the clickers
 
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re the TO springs open up some car shocks they have suitable springs on the rebound stack or yes you can cut the original ones down. just make sure to deburr the inside of the spring, the rod is soft alloy
 
one thing that is a bit tricky is disassembling the lower part of the spring guide.

look closely and you see 2 parts

the lower of the 2 is like a big cup, the part of the upper one that is visible looks like a 1mm thick washer

they are jammed together and inside there is a snap ring

get a chisel or a sharpened screwdriver and prise the 2 bits of metal apart, removing the lower cup

then you can remove the snap ring and the upper portion
 
Thanks!! For what it's worth, I don't mind changing the geometry - just trying to picture it
 
Anthon Berg said:
Thanks!! For what it's worth, I don't mind changing the geometry - just trying to picture it
Click to expand...

ah that's good

sometimes the geometry needs changing anyway


FWIW if there is a clearance issue you can shorten the MV and BV stems a fair bit and make the retaining nuts a lot thinner
 
My SXS fork kit finally showed up from Munn so I opened em up. I looked things over and decided to not make too many changes at once. Not finding any suitable replacements I just cut down the top out spring, removed one coil then bent it back flat and ground smooth ended up being 6mm shorter. put the plastic guide back in it and youd never know it wasnt from WP. I got the metal pieces off the bottom of the spring guides and saw what needs to be done. No lathe at home yet so decided that will be for another day. The SKF seals and low friction bushings should make a big difference on there own so I will get out for a test first.

while I was in there I did some more changes to the midvalve and rebound. after 285 hours the top 20.1 midvalve shim was cupped pretty good. I am using a variation of the stacks posted by cimwill in the 09 forks strip thread.
 
the pics are in the gallery ...so they don't show up

I'll see if i can remember where and which ones they are
 
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Has anyone converted the original WP FS supermoto suspension to fit dirt riding ?

My bike is an original FS, I've been trail and dirt riding it for a few years with 21&18's, suspension set to the smooth end, but it's not very good. But still fun.
 

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