WRF Forks – Time for an upgrade!

[damien turnourMember]

I just drop my bike at chads off road set ups at lara [09 wr450 200ks] to get the front and rear done 10 years of a bike and things have changed he re jets and set the whole bike up to suit weight riding style way to soft for me 100 k + I WILL TELL HOW MUCH BETTER NEXT WEEK, iast bike 97 sc 400 ktm white power standard its all new to me ?

[Graeme PattersonMember]

eric, just dump the old oil out of the tubes and refill with marshmellows from woolies or coles, should then suit your riding style or lack thereof.
my pleasure, anytime maaaate. :laugh:

[Brendon CarreMember]

+1 for Teknik. very happy with there work you get what you pay for!! They do good work.
They back up all ther mods too.

[Eric SmithMember]

ekipS wrote:

Quote:

eric, just dump the old oil out of the tubes and refill with marshmellows from woolies or coles, should then suit your riding style or lack thereof.
my pleasure, anytime maaaate. :laugh:

That’s it mate, keep laughing…

…that’s the last time I tow you back home! :laugh:

Thanks all (except skipS!) for the input. I will make a few calls (if I get time) today and let you know how it went.

[Anonymous]

ECKS-Man wrote:

Quote:

But I thought I might get some opinions from my respected and knowledgeable friends on OBT before calling him again. (Moto, no need for you to reply mate!) :laugh:

How rude.

[Eric SmithMember]

Well, it only took me 6 months to get my crap in a pile but the WR is in the shop as we speak – type – whatever!

After a long and hard decision making process (for that, read: procrastination) and scraping funds together, I arrived to a decision while I was at Condo.

A local dealer, Greg Elliot, has been racing the Condo 750 for yonks, possibly since it’s inception. I was talking to him about suspension and it seemed to me that he understood what I wanted – an XR or DR style plushness with resistance to bottoming (not necessarily as per an XR!). Turns out Greg, who runs Morris Motorcycles in Orange, does suspension and we had a long chat about it. Greg thinks, and I must admit I agree, that the valving should be OK but that I will need heavier springs to cart my lardy butt around! Ultimately the suspension at the moment is nice and plush in the bottom of the stroke, but blows through and bottoms out badly on medium jumps or larger. Mostly the forks it has to be said, the rear isn’t too bad.

Now I know some of you blokes will tell me I’ve done the wrong thing and should have taken the bike to a bigger specialist or something. I’m still happy with my decision and think that it is a good thing to support the local bloke if he shows the right attitude. I won’t tolerate bullshit, lies or poor service, but as it stands right now, we’re all good!

So, the results will be forthcoming in a week or two and I will give an honest assessment of what I reckon.

[GregMember]

Greg’s a good bloke I know him and understand why you went there good thing supporting local. He is a no bullshit sort of bloke.

The only thing I reckon is valving and the shim stacks are so important as they control the stroke as such. Springs will hold you up at the right heights and are as important but at the end of the travel its the valving that will save you bottoming and slow the blowing through the stroke.

I am sure it will be sorted and as I said Greg is a good bloke he raced for years with my step Dad and has bailed me out a few times

Look forward to your ride report

TB

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Ecks bloody hell man you’ve done the wrong thing and should have taken the bike to a bigger specialist or something. You won’t ever be happy with youry decision and I reckon its a dumb thing to support the local bloke.

Now someone got that out of the way.

Good stuff Ecks, there are lots of little players that are just as knowledgeable as nationally recognised names, and to use this resource is not only smart, but efficient.

Although from my limited understanding of modern Forks i do tend to agree with TB (been doing this a lot lately, ..reminder must book myself into pyschcologist soon) the valving is most effective in making the system either lineal or progressive in it’s action as this is best undertaken by hydraulic resistance.

But again as i said… what would i know i haven’t done my own suspension work in 15 years.

[Eric SmithMember]

Mr Blue wrote:

Quote:

Ecks bloody hell man you’ve done the wrong thing and should have taken the bike to a bigger specialist or something. You won’t ever be happy with youry decision and I reckon its a dumb thing to support the local bloke. Onya BC, there had to be someone…

Now someone got that out of the way.

Good stuff Ecks, there are lots of little players that are just as knowledgeable as nationally recognised names, and to use this resource is not only smart, but efficient.

Although from my limited understanding of modern Forks i do tend to agree with TB (been doing this a lot lately, ..reminder must book myself into pyschcologist soon) the valving is most effective in making the system either lineal or progressive in it’s action as this is best undertaken by hydraulic resistance.

But again as i said… what would i know i haven’t done my own suspension work in 15 years.

Yeah Bruce, I hear the message RE valving. However I am thinking that just by having the suspension sitting higher in the stroke, the valving won’t be too bad. I DO like the current plushness in the initial part of the stroke. If that is moved to higher in the stroke it should be a goodly part of the problem solved. I therefore think the problem is mostly the springs because no amount of valve changing will fix this bottoming out problem. My opinion only and it may be madness thinly disguised as the ramblings of a semi-sane individual!

[GregMember]

Two things ECKS I supported your local bloke as well

And the plushness you describe now in the top of you stroke is because of your soft springs. Harder springs will take that away because they are stiffer to hold the bike higher (in simple terms). Think about it as the srings hold you up at then top part but as it goes down the valving slows it

TB

[Eric SmithMember]

Where’s the lightbulb smiley?

Yeah, got ya TB. I’ll let you know how it goes and, worst case, a valve upgrade might have to be added later on.

[Anonymous]

I reckon the springs will alone will be fine and will sort most/all of the problem out. I think having the valving done will make it better again but getting it sprung right is half the battle.

I will be interested in your opinion

[Eric SmithMember]

Moto wrote:

Quote:

I reckon the springs will alone will be fine and will sort most/all of the problem out. I think having the valving done will make it better again but getting it sprung right is half the battle.

I will be interested in your opinion

Well also I figure the springs are the major factor here. There are still clickers to get some adjustment to the oil flow rates – which is what valving does, essentially.

Here’s my thoughts: the spring will set the ride height by how hard it is. The valving and clickers control the rate of movement of the spring and thus the fork. But the valving and clickers will not act differently on the oil flow just because the fork is in a different position. The rate of movement will be affected by the valving and clickers restricting the oil flow – damping the movement of the fork.

So a different (say heavier) spring will cause the forks to naturally sit further extended in any given moment. The rate of the movement will differ only in that in compression the rate of movement should in theory be slower due to the heavier spring, while any movement in the rebound direction may be faster, also due to the heavier spring.

My call on the affect of changing springs and not valves will be that in compression (which is where I currently have a problem) the forks will perform better. While in rebound there may be some added harshness. Given that there are clickers to adjust both compression and rebound damping, this should all be able to be controlled – to some extent at least.

Time will tell!

[StuartMember]

Suspension…… So many different opinions.

Anyway my 09 WR450F has a Teknik T valve kit in it, Standard .46 Springs & from memory 10mm of preload.

I spoke to Nick at Teknik when making my decision. I’m 90+kg in gear possibly closer to 100kg,& run a 13.5l Clarke Tank & was advised to stay with the standard .46 springs & not go to .48’s. It’s easy to change springs if I wasn’t happy. Will be taking a set to Finke though

Sure my bike will bottom if I ride motocross, however I mainly ride Singles. badbowie kept his stock for a while and if we swapped bikes his was plain scary with stock forks.

This setup took me to 40th outright at last years Yellow Mountain, so I guess it must be a reasonably good setup

Teknik have some good info on their site about the shortcomings of the standard forks, worth a read

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Well also I figure the springs are the major factor here. There are still clickers to get some adjustment to the oil flow rates – which is what valving does, essentially.

Here’s my thoughts: the spring will set the ride height by how hard it is. The valving and clickers control the rate of movement of the spring and thus the fork. But the valving and clickers will not act differently on the oil flow just because the fork is in a different position. The rate of movement will be affected by the valving and clickers restricting the oil flow – damping the movement of the fork.

So a different (say heavier) spring will cause the forks to naturally sit further extended in any given moment. The rate of the movement will differ only in that in compression the rate of movement should in theory be slower due to the heavier spring, while any movement in the rebound direction may be faster, also due to the heavier spring.

My call on the affect of changing springs and not valves will be that in compression (which is where I currently have a problem) the forks will perform better. While in rebound there may be some added harshness. Given that there are clickers to adjust both compression and rebound damping, this should all be able to be controlled – to some extent at least.

Time will tell!

I agree 100%. Also, the stroke of the fork under compression will now have slightly further to travel since the firmer spring are holding the front end higher when you are sat on it.

I’m interested in your review because this is exactly what I thinking of doing with my bike.

[Author]

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