I’ve put a few miles on my recently purchased, and much worked on 2005 S-Hawk. The front forks have been disassembled, cleaned, seals replaced, RaceTech .90 springs, Belray 7wt fork oil 135mm oil level. The bushing had 100% Teflon still showing. Corse fork brace installed. Needless to say, big improvement from before. My Olins rear shock is currently at Olins USA awaiting a new spring and seals. I have ridden it enough to see that the stock rear shock is pretty bad.

The focus of this thread is that I was hoping to get advice on a fork re-valve such as what Greg does, as compared to installing RaceTech Gold rebound valves (Type-1 assume). What are the technical differences, and what are the practical differences that appear when actually riding. I am not a track guy, I am picky. Thank you for your help. JB

 

everything i read was that the stock valves were good but just needed the shim stack adjusted.

i've talked with GP suspension, and had dave rebuild the forks on my suzuki, & they have a pretty cool setup. they make valves & just like others that do think theirs are a better design.

i had set my forks up per revolution racing instruction ( all but drilling the hole ) and after installing a Penske rear shock quickly found myself fighting the front end, which previously i thought was pretty good.

i sent my forks to greg and am VERY happy with the results. jamie could have installed gold valves and i'm sure i'd be just as impressed. the question being if i had two bike setup the same way could you tell which was which ? i don't know as i've never riden gold valves. i do think you'll be very pleased which ever way you go.

tim

 

Hey Greg, not looking for you to give away any trade secrets, but can you please tell us the basics of what you do? I guess that you do not use GoldValves. Thank you. JB

 

There's some very helpful information on the Independent Bike Suspension Forum and on Peter Verdone's website. Searching this forum and the forums for other bikes with Showa 20 mm. cartridges can also be productive.
Nobody gives this information away. I guess that some reasons are: it's time consuming to find what works best, it's hard to acquire the knowledge, one set-up won't work for all riders, the wrong set-up can lead to people being hurt, a good set-up can be installed incorrectly, the handling issue could be caused by something other than fork rebound valving and it's money out of the pockets of people who do this for a living.
I'm still trying to find the answer.

 

Actually, quite the opposite. The stock Honda HMAS valves used in the VTR forks, as well as later model VFR and others, are known to be pretty poor performing parts. There is some marginal gains to be had by adjusting the shim stacks on them but it really isn't worth the effort (I've found). I'm still working on getting them to work without modification but the restriction is just too great and I've not had any luck. I think you'll find that Greg makes significant modifications to the stock valves in order to improve the flow when he reworks forks. I choose to just replace the compression valves with aftermarket parts as that's where I've had the best results. I've been doing this for several years and can use that data to help get the proper setup for each rider. That's one of the most important things I think - experience.

 

Thanks Jamie, do you have comments or opinions on the GV Type1 as compared to the new G2-R Compression kits? I see from your other posts that you like to use 5wt oil, is there a brand that you prefer? I always use BelRay for no other reason than I always use BelRay. I used to use it when it came in tall round white plastic bottles.

Oh - one more thing Jamie - do you work on forks other than VTR's. I have a 2007 VFR which I will get to one of these days. It isn't all that bad as it is and the VTR is the current focus.

Thank you. JB

 

I've got a lot of data on the Type 1 valves so that's what I use most of the time. I've done some G2-R setups and they work good also. The G2-R valves offer more adjustability, but for the street rider you end up negating all of these adjustments and setting them us just like the Type 1's. Because of that I recommend the Type 1 valves to everyone except the expert level racers.

I also do a lot of VFR suspension work. The VTR and VFR work comprises most of what I do. I also do quite a few Fox Twin Clicker rebuilds as these days it's difficult to find anyone who will work on them. I've been getting into a lot of SV650 fork work too as those guys really like swapping internals from something else. I'm in the middle of putting R1 internals in a set of SV forks right now. That stuff is fun.

 

Cool - thanks. A popular "swap" for the NT650GT Hawk is to use F3 forks, but exchange the fork legs with the stock Hawk fork legs to accomodate the front brake. The stock Hawk forks are conventional damper rod forks while the F3s are cartrigde forks with some adjustment:
http://www.hawkworks.net/tips/F3forks/F3forks.html.

The other popular upgrade is to exchange the stock NT shock for a 900RR shock, which requires some work, but not too much;
http://www.wildnkrazed.com/Go9/R_SHOCK/index.html

Speaking of SV650s, my brother has a ZX6 (1990). In doing some research for it, I discovered a common shock swap for the SV is to swap the stock SV shock with a ZX shock (not sure which one).

 

Hell. i thought the air gap was supposed to be about 100-120mm, how did you arrive at 135mm?

 

Stock is 130mm, I went with 135mm because of the stiffer RT .90 springs. It was a guess.

 

yeah. your right. i was thinking of my xr forks. Actually, this is what i did to mine several years ago and they work pretty well.

http://www.ablett.jp/bikes/vtr/vtr_sus.htm

 

The taper grind? I was considering doing this as well. I have not because I want to leave the forks "as is" until I decide what to do with them. The springs and oil alone made a huge difference so it is ridable. With the stock springs and 5 year old it, it really was not.

Anhy other opinions on the taper grind from anyone? Thank you. JB

 

It gives a bit more adjustability but it's a far less significant change that what you've already done and what Jamie recommended.