Cartridge forks for minitwins

[barryreynolds]

Hi Guys,

I'm creating myself a minitwin and have bought some cartridge forks from Andreani Group.

They are very good and have been set up for racing by the previous owner. The only problem is the forks caps aren't standard. Would these be valid in minitwins or can the caps be changed to standard?

BTW this is my first post. I live a couple of miles from Brands Hatch so hope to be doing a track days in 2015 and hopefully racing in 2016.

My build so far is

2002 sv650s
zx6r rear shock
Cartridge front forks
New wheel and steering bearings
15 / 46 renthal sprockets and renthal rr4 race chain
Woodruff key (bought not installed yet)
Front and rear inlet cams (bought but not installed)
Renthal grips
Racing clips ons
Racing rearsets
Corsa rosso tyres
Two finger levers
Delkevic slip on
SBS front and rear sintered pads
Front and rear wesmoto front and rear brake lines

Anything else I could add other than fairing and lightweight subframes - they will be next year.

Thanks

Barry

[andrewsmith]

Hi Barry

If your doing track days it'll be fine. The tops will depend on the club you'll associated/ racing with (BESMEE will probably say no).
You can buy k2 fork tops and modify them (may be a straight fit) as the tops are removable from the cartridge.
From memory Yorkie Chris has done something similar in the past.

[barryreynolds]

Cool, I'll look into the K2 tops.

PS - I think i may have bought them off you on ebay? If not someone from the north east with similar name. If so they are very good, just need to try them out on a track with the new setup next year to push them

[andrewsmith]

Yeah you did get them off me.
I'm guessing you have opened them up and looked

[barryreynolds]

Not yet, I didn't want to change the setup you had done. I've checked out the manuals on them and looking to change the caps at a later point when I start racing but thats probably not until 2016.

It gives me a year to finish building it and improving my skills and then i'll get the suspension front and back set up for my weight - currently a little to heavy at 13.5 stone : )

[andrewsmith]

From memory it's 17 turns from fully in to fully out.
I'm at about 9 turns in

[barryreynolds]

Nice one, i'll test that out

[jambo]

Mini twins regs can be surprisingly restrictive in places. The woodruff key advances ignition so wouldn't be allowed, and fork caps must be standard. When you say inlet cams, these are also not allowed. You can use pointy inlet and exhaust cams but they have to be installed in their intended position. I.e. inlet cam in inlet side and exhaust cam in exhaust side. The rest of the list should work out ok. There's an open day for bemsee on december 14th which might be worth a visit to get an idea of what people are up to

Jambo

Sent without a real keyboard

[barryreynolds]

Thanks Jambo, Ill go along to the bemsee meeting on 14th december.

I've going to be using pointy inlet cams in my curvy using this tutorial http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154847


Good point on the woodruff key, i'll leave that out.

thanks

[jambo]

Yeah, you're not allowed inlet cams in the exhaust side at all, regardless of year :)

Jambo

Sent without a real keyboard

[SV650Racer]

Caps have to remain standard and cant be modified in any way.

They will get checked too at a race meeting at some point and the techs know what to look for.

[MOTO-TECH]

I just sold an SV that had forks modified to take R6 cartridges using the standard caps with the preloaded adjusters modified to adjust damping.

Brian.
www.moto-tech.biz
2014 Adelaide Masters Supertwin Champions.

[yorkie_chris]

Caps have to remain standard and cant be modified in any way.

They will get checked too at a race meeting at some point and the techs know what to look for.

How did they get can't be modified in any way?

Way I read it is "can't be modified to allow external adjustment", so way I was doing them with preload knob as a cap over the damping adjuster was alright.

[jhsracing]

When we modifie the forks to accept the k-tech cartridge kit on the sv650 we use the early fork top caps which are completely stock and are held in by either a thread or an o-ring. All within minitwin rules.
james

[Mike1234]

The MiniTwins rules are quite clear. The standard fork caps must be retained with absolutely no modifications. The prelude adjustable fork caps can only be used when connected via the R clip to the lower hole on the preload adjuster itself. Anything else is illegal and will see the bike excluded when discovered.

"Fork caps may not be modified or replaced beyond the homologated standard to allow external adjustments." - The 'homologated standard' is the standard the caps were delivered from Suzuki. There is no other interpretation of the rule.

[jhsracing]

Perfectly said Mike. Very clear.

[yorkie_chris]

Could be worded a lot better!
Like:
"Fork caps may not be modified or replaced beyond the homologated standard." would be a lot clearer than having the second part of the statement which suggests they can be modified so long as the modification does not allow more external adjustment than the homologated standard.

James what threads are you picking up on then? I used threads on the ID of early caps... but this is apparently not within the rules... I suppose you could use the cap threads with a "bung" type piece in the stanchion if the threads are deep enough? Or have no positive connection at all and allow the damper to dislocate in the fork.

[jhsracing]

The Suzuki caps have no relevance at all to the replacement damper kits we fit to the forks, they are purely there to a please the rules.
james