MXS Twitter

[Robert196]

Autocross is fun even though my times sucked because if all season tires

[Robert196]

Well results just posted and I won my class

[TeamHavocRacing]

Nice Robert! I rallycrossed a few years back and got a medal for 3rd in stock RWD. There were 3 of us. These pics are from the previous year in stock AWD.

[rideblue56]

a bunch of stuff about forks.

Not sure if anyone helped off forum. but anyways..

Seems like you had the compression too high, but you addressed that. It may not be the suspension (completely). Things like posture and even how much power youre putting down effect how you land. Try giving it more gas next time, it helps keep your momentum going forward rather than downward, therefor less stress on you. Plus you go faster which is always good.

[On The Pipe]

Instead of getting a late model 250 2T I think I'm going to try to find a 93-96/00-01 CR250R or 94-01 KX250 and rebuild it.

[On The Pipe]

Anyone know the length of an FMF shorty for a 125? I just ordered one for my YZ125 because I thought I had an OEM silencer. Now I'm not sure since it looks like an older FMF model I found on ebay. I measured my muffler it came out to 9.5 inches could not find any lengths on the shorty.

[checkerz]

That's crazy! Hope everyone is ok.

So many people have heard me complain about this for a long time. My forks feel very harsh on sudden impacts, which I believe makes me grip the bars tighter and gives me hand cramps (not really arm pump, but my hands get so tired it's hard to hold on). A specific section is a roller type section, but the backsides are more like drop-offs so you just bounce off of each one. Here's a MXS gif kinda showing how it is, obviously scaling is way off but you get the idea.

When I land onto the next it feels like the bike slams down which makes it hard to carry any momentum through them. I mainly think it's my forks (could be my shock negatively affecting my forks, but I don't think that is necessarily the case). The sag has to be checked again but it was set last year correctly. Last time I rode (Thursday) I started out with my previous fork clickers at (clicks out) 15 compression and 12 rebound, first tried changing rebound to 6 then compression to 11 (MXA's recommended settings (people have their opinions on them but I trust their judgement)). Seemed like it helped but still didn't solve it (and I would say it didn't negatively effect the bike at all other places on the track). Watching other people do the same section their bikes just look like they soak it up and have no problem, next time I want to try to record myself through it and see how the suspension looks from the side. According to Race Tech's site the recommended spring rates for C class 150lb is .40kg/mm up front (.42 stock) and .46 rear (.47 stock). Anyone have any ideas? Just sucks knowing I can't get the bike to do what I want, and only being able to ride like 3 laps before I have to roll around to let my hands relax...

This is a question more for Chris I guess, does RT adjust the existing mechanisms for a fork (like how Yamaha has the SSS)? Sorry I don't know much about the inner works of forks other than there's the springs, the valve that controls oil flow and some stack things I have no clue on .

What you are feeling is an initial harshness and is super common. Here are some ideas of the issues/solutions from my marketing guy knowledge:

- Check to make sure your forks are installed properly and parallel. So many times we get complaints of harshness and it is as simple as they pinched the forks on the axle when putting on the front wheel. Here is a step by step on proper way to install your forks/front wheel to line them up: http://racetech.com/page/title/Fork%20Installation

- Stiction (static friction) also causes harshness. Some things that will cause your forks to be more sticky than normal (besides being a huge complaint of air forks which isn't your case) would be excess seal drag (either wrong seals or low quality seals). Race Tech, OEM, or SKF seals are recommended. Also some suspension fluids are really good at reducing stiction. Race Tech or Spectro would be recommended. We also provide a free ultra slick finishing process on all of our revalves. This adds a slight cross hatch onto your inner fork tubes creating less surface area and a place for fluid to "rest" drastically reducing stiction and improving seal life.

- Check your sag - running the rear too high will put excess weight on the front wheel putting you lower into the stroke than intended (and the lower in the stroke the stiffer the valving). In contrast, running the rear too high will cause not enough weight on the front and make it harsh and unstable. Sag and spring rates along with quality fluids are always the starting point.

- Spring rate in your forks is a touch soft, see above about getting lower into the stroke than you wish and it being harsh. Also, keep in mind while the stock fork spring rate is listed as a .40, the manufacturing process for springs makes all rates less than exact. That means a .40 could actually be a .37 or a .43, some manufacturers are worse than others. We pay a lot of money to have the tightest tolerances in the industry (we have a contract with the company that supplies nearly all suspension companies their springs that guarantees this) meaning when you order a .42 you actually get a .42. I believe our tolerance is 3% and the closest anyone else can guarantee is a 7%. This applies to aftermarket springs, but my guess is the OEM's have even looser standards to keep the costs down.

Typically for tuning, if we have a harshness in the front end like you're describing we'll recommend opening up the rebound (softer/adjusting out/counter clockwise) on the forks 2 clicks at a time. Always keep in mind rebound affects compression many times more than the compression adjuster itself affects compression.

- Once you've exhausted all of these routes, then you'd look at valving. The whole design around the Gold Valve is to provide an initially plush feel and improve bottoming resistance. This is done through improving the flow and relying on the shim stack vs. the ports in the valve. The ports are fixed, while shim stacks are velocity sensitive. The Fork Compression Gold Valve handles jump landings/how much the front end is held up when riding/bottoming resistance while the rebound valve (many times called Mid-Valve) really effects initial plushness and traction.

Hope that helps!

[Anchor_b]

http://vurbmoto.com/blogs/will-chad-ree ... am-/24572/

How idiotic is this?

[yzmxer608]

Thanks Chris! To be honest the front end hasn't been apart since it was bought 5 years ago so I wouldn't doubt if the forks aren't exactly parallel and the oil has broken down. When you say my spring rates are soft do you mean the stock ones or the RT recommended ones? The stock springs (although probably not exact like you said) are stiffer than what the calculator suggested.

[bob117]

i have the exact same problem, nate. so be sure to post if you find something that works. haha.

[Pumaxcs]

I would think blipping the throttle at the lip so you land on the rear wheel would help but could end up goony real quick if not done correctly.

[checkerz]

Thanks Chris! To be honest the front end hasn't been apart since it was bought 5 years ago so I wouldn't doubt if the forks aren't exactly parallel and the oil has broken down. When you say my spring rates are soft do you mean the stock ones or the RT recommended ones? The stock springs (although probably not exact like you said) are stiffer than what the calculator suggested.

I did read it wrong and thought you wrote that it may be too soft, but you can read the comments also about if they were too stiff (not enough weight on the front end) in the sag comments.

Definitely check alignment and if it hasn't been apart you definitely need to get fresh fluids in there and your seals/bushings are likely ready as well. We recommend rebuilds at 20-30 hours for fluid and at that time we check wear on seals/bushings. If you aren't wanting to spring for a full revalve, definitely start with the other stuff mentioned. A rebuild is retail $100 for forks and $100 for shock plus any replacement parts/fluid you need to ballpark the price. A revalve is same for labor, but of course there are more parts involved.

[On The Pipe]

The 2016 KX450F looks like it is going to be a real pain to install graphics on the front and rear fenders.

[KTM57]

People who care about aesthetics and want graphics won't be buying 2016 KX450Fs.

[rideblue56]

Nothing that a bunch of windex and a heat gun wont solve.