Sonic Springs and Race Tech Emulators intall

[dorkburger]

Hmmm. I thought they were the same thing... They are coming from a member (TxGSrider) here who has been great to deal with. I’ll find out what I can from him when I get them. Tracking says they will arrive tomorrow.

[greg78gs750]

um....interesting to see how this pans out re: shims vs springs etc.....to my knowledge no gs forks use cartridge type forks, but i am no expert....

[RichDesmond]

Rich, he says the forks have Gold Valves, they don't have a spring, like emulators. They have shims that you stack to vary the valveing of the cartridge, see here for an example http://www.vstrom.info/Smf/index.php?topic=2494.0 .

I just installed a set in my Bandit forks on my 1000 along with a set of your .95 springs, gonna have to wait till spring to try them though .

Glen, you will have to contact Racetech for valveing stack-up, or see if the fellow you bought them from has the original paperwork as it comes with a code you may be able to use to use their calculator. Or maybe just try here http://www.racetech.com/dvs/

I'm pretty sure the forks will have emulators in them, given that the stock forks are the damper rod style. While there are a few people who have retrofit actual cartridges into damper rod forks they generally use OEM cartridges from a modern sport bike, I'm not aware of anyone doing that with Race Tech Gold Valves.

Glen, many people get confused with the terms. Technically the Gold Valves are replacement cartridges for forks that already have them, while Gold Valve Emulators (GVEs) are a completely different device, designed for damper rod forks, that somewhat emulates the action of a cartridge shim stack with a blowoff valve. There are two ways of tuning the GVEs, by either changing the amount of preload on the spring that holds down the blowoff valve, or by changing the spring itself to a different rate. Race-tech makes 3 different rates, I think.
The GVEs only work on the compression side, so the basic strategy is to dial in the rebound damping via oil weight, and then tune the compression damping to suit with the GVE.

[dorkburger]

Makes sense, thanks.

[TxGSrider]

Hey Glen,
They are the Gold Valve Emulators, and I don't remember what I had set the turns at (I set them to whatever the Racetech instructions suggested). I used 15wt oil and drilled and chamfered the damper rods per the instructions. I left the antidive stuff on the forks as I didn't have anything to block the holes.

I think I overfilled the fork level, so double check that, and you might find a couple bucks worth of quarters in the forks that I used to fine tune the ride height (sag). So think of them as an "Instant Rebate".-lol!

I always felt they were a little over dampened, so you might follow Rich's suggestion and use a 10wt fork oil instead.

[Fjbj40]

There ya go, they are gold valves emulators and not just "gold valves", back to normal broadcast services then

Odd though, Racetech website does not list the 1150?

[dorkburger]

Hey Glen,
They are the Gold Valve Emulators, and I don't remember what I had set the turns at (I set them to whatever the Racetech instructions suggested). I used 15wt oil and drilled and chamfered the damper rods per the instructions. I left the antidive stuff on the forks as I didn't have anything to block the holes.

I think I overfilled the fork level, so double check that, and you might find a couple bucks worth of quarters in the forks that I used to fine tune the ride height (sag). So think of them as an "Instant Rebate".-lol!

I always felt they were a little over dampened, so you might follow Rich's suggestion and use a 10wt fork oil instead.

Great, thanks! Any chance you'll share your as in riding gear weight?

[TxGSrider]

Great, thanks! Any chance you'll share your as in riding gear weight?

Now you're just getting too personal... lol!

About 185lbs... a few lbs more than that right now... the holidays didn't help.

[dorkburger]

Forks are safely in the garage. TxGSrider, thanks for the painless and enjoyable transaction, and for the info you provided here. Hopefully I'll be able to get to get into this over the weekend.

[dorkburger]

I opened up one of the forks last night. Blue spring. Rich, I'm guessing by preload, you're speaking about how many turns on the emulator spring nut?

Also, TxGSrider, when the forks were apart were the bushings, etc replaced? If not I may use my lowers as I rebuilt my forks two seasons ago. Knowledge from that job definitely helped last night.

[RichDesmond]

I opened up one of the forks last night. Blue spring. Rich, I'm guessing by preload, you're speaking about how many turns on the emulator spring nut?...

Yes. Back it out until there's no tension on the spring, counting the turns as you go. Write it down. Then put it back the way it was.
Blue spring is good. I'd put 10w in, set the level to 120mm and see how it is.

http://www.racetech.com/page/title/Emulator%20Tuning%20Guide

[dorkburger]

Excellent! Thank you sir.

Edit... I read thru the adjustment procedure. Regarding oil level they say to measure oil with the forks fully extended, spring removed. Is this the typical method, and how you would do it also?

[dorkburger]

Glib, I realized that I have hijacked your thread..... Apologies. My thinking was that it would help us both.

[RichDesmond]

Excellent! Thank you sir.

Edit... I read thru the adjustment procedure. Regarding oil level they say to measure oil with the forks fully extended, spring removed. Is this the typical method, and how you would do it also?

Fork compressed, spring and spacer removed but leave the emulator in there. You're measuring the air gap, distance from the top of the tube down to the surface of the oil, so bigger numbers mean less oil.

Edit: Just checked, R-T says fully compressed also, they just phrase it as "chrome tube at the bottom of the stroke".

[dorkburger]

Got it, thanks again, and thanks for your quick responsees... I only wish I could get everything together that fast.... it will likely be a few weeks minimum before I get fully involved. My initial thinking was just swap them on and go, but in the long run, but that ocassially bites me in the end....