After a bunch of testing I’m happy to say I’ve got the suspension set up just the way I want it and am thoroughly enjoying the bike. I’ve changed the front to a heavier set of 0.50kg springs and a 6.0kg spring in the rear.
The rear suspension needed very little work from standard. I changed the valving in the shock by fitting a slow-speed compression valve stack and stiffening the high-speed compression damping slightly. This allowed the shock to absorb the smaller bumps at slow speeds better while still soaking up the big hits. The rear rider sag I am running at 100mm, which I am really happy with.
The fork needed more work, but I’ve got it working correctly. I machined both the mid-valve and compression valve, as these struggle to flow oil smoothly from standard. The holes are very small and restrictive and require a large amount of force to get oil to flow through them correctly. This causes the fork to feel stiff in the initial part of the stroke. If the fork receives a large enough hit to force oil through these valves, the valving is too light and the fork blows through.
What I have done to fix this problem is machine the vlves to flow the oil more efficiently and then added a two-stage disc stack on the compression valve. This allows oil to pass through the valve at slow fork speeds, but when the fork travels at high speed the second stage takes over and stiffens the fork to prevent it from blowing through and bottoming.
I have also revalved the rebound, increasing damping to make it more progressive. I’m running 6mm of preload on my 0.50kg fork springs, which gives me a rider fork sag of 60mm, and am running an oil/air gap of 100mm. It has taken many hours of testing to get the fork to this point, but I am very happy with how it is performing now. I am pleased with the handling of the whole bike.
It has amazed me at how well this bike turns and how easy it is to turn into ruts. With my suspension sorted internally, I now just run my clickers at 12 in the front and back, giving me plenty of adjustment, forward and back, if I need to make any small changes while I am at the track.
Next month I am going to take a look at a few mods to get the bike ready to hit the race track.
Total Hours: 10
Mods the Months: Setting up the suspension
Mods next month: Getting ready for racing
Technical Editor Mat Boyd
