Emulators.. which ones?, pros/cons

[LeeSv650]

So I'm not happy with the results of my spring/oil upgrade.. so if I'm going to keep/enjoy this bike it looks like I'm going to have to upgrade to emulators.

So it seems Racetech are the most popular brand.. looks like they cost around £150 in the UK. I called a shop near me, Steve Jordan, who'll supply and fit them for £335.. a good price?

I see that YSS do a set for £87, are this recommended?.. If purchasing these do I require anything else.. apart from drilling out existing damper rods.

Then there's the Traxxion damper rod kit for £277, which includes emulators and predrilled damper rods.. I'd then have to have them fitted.

Any recommendations/deals on emulators etc would be appreciated

I live in East Sussex..

[Bibio]

emulators are only good if you can set them up properly and are a fast rider that uses their brakes a lot.

emulators slow down the dive when braking but have a popper that opens on bumps. this might sound great but it takes trial and error to get the popper to stay closed on braking but pop on bumps. if the popper is too late in opening you get a harsh ride, if the popper is too early in opening its the same as it would be without them, in fact its worse. its a very narrow tuning range to get the emulators working correctly.

to set them up still requires mixing oil to get the rebound correct but you then have the added complication of setting the popper for a given oil mix. there is NO 'mates settings' for this as it requires all the components to work together including spring rates etc.etc.

once set up they can be very close to the performance of full cartridge forks.

my advice for what its worth is weld up the rebound holes on the damper rods and concentrate on oil mix (viscosity) to set the rebound then if you feel the front is still 'diving' too much for your tastes then invest in emulators.

[LeeSv650]

Its not the diving that's causing me issues, its the rebound, or lack of it. There doesn't appear to be any absorption of the bumps in the road.. every little bump is jarring.. surely this isn't right?

[Bibio]

is it bumps or potholes that is causing the 'jarring' that you are feeling?

[LeeSv650]

Both, anything that isn't smooth tarmac.. its like theres no suspension at all.. it bounces around alot, I'm actually having to raise my bum up over bumps and try not to hold onto bars too tightly as the jarring is causing my head to ache...

[Bibio]

raising your bum is the rear. this could actually be too much (slow) rebound and or compression.

as for the front, even the standard setup on the SV is soft and fairly good on bumps. the rebound is a different story. the SV's rebound makes the front feel like a pogo stick.

have you put a cabletie round one of the front stanchions to measure how far up the front suspension is travelling?

what oil did you use and what height did you set the oil to?

[LeeSv650]

How do i stop the pogo effect?.. thats what i feel is the issue.

Why didn't my 99 curvy not have this issue?

I initially put in 10w.. not sure what the height was set to.. I've been advised to put in 15 or 20w and the air gap should be 130mm

[Bibio]

I initially put in 10w.. not sure what the height was set to.. I've been advised to put in 15 or 20w and the air gap should be 130mm

there we have two problems. first is ''not sure what the height was set to'' second is that the air gap is 92mm for N and 94mm for S but tbh just set at 90mm and certainly not 130mm. setting to 130mm will cause excessive bouncing around as the air gap is huge.

depending on if you welded up the rebound holes and what spring rate you have then 10w might be a bit heavy and again depends on what make of oil was used.

do not put 15-20w oil in. the heavier the oil the slower the rate at which the forks move.

what air gap did you use (oil level)?
what spring rate did you get?
how heavy are you?
did you weld the rebound holes up on the damper rods?
what make of oil did you buy?

[Bibio]

if other people are reading this and wondering about the fork oil level on the SV then the pointy is 90mm (92mm N 94mm S) and the curvy is 100mm (102mm S&N)

[LeeSv650]

I weight 10 stone, i got an 8.5 spring, initially put in 10w silkolene rst oil, don't know the gap, left it to garage..rebound holes were not welded.

Spoke to woman this morning at Steve Jordan, she advised an 130mm air drop and 15 or 20w oil, so this is now my set up, i have ridden the bike yet, but don't hold out much hope.

[LeeSv650]

I'm going to pick bike up now.. i will report back

[LeeSv650]

Well i gotta say, it actually feels better!.. so thats 20w of silkolene rst and 130mm air gap, 8.5 linear K-tech spring.. I think I'm going to stop playing with it now and just ride it.

[Bibio]

glad your happy. enjoy the ride :-)

[LeeSv650]

Thanks.. still got the rear shock to play around with, but pretty sure that'll work out ok with sone tweaking.. oh abd still need to adjust TPS

[DomP]

I fitted YSS emulators to my pointy S with welded rebound holes and drilled out damper rod holes then silkolene 7.5w oil. I don't remember the oil level but I put shorter spacers in. Certainly a hell of a lot better than standard but can be a little harsh on rougher roads.

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[Bibio]

I fitted YSS emulators to my pointy S with welded rebound holes and drilled out damper rod holes then silkolene 7.5w oil. I don't remember the oil level but I put shorter spacers in. Certainly a hell of a lot better than standard but can be a little harsh on rougher roads.

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the harshness is due to the emulators popper valve not being set properly.

[embee]

In myNC700 Honda I have the Debrix, and another owner has used the YSS. We've discussed our experiences with settings at great length.
We've both found the holes in the valve disc need increasing substantially to get sensible slow damping with sensible oil (I use Silkolene RSF7.5W)). We've both ended up with 4 holes at typically 2.8mm dia (slightly different in each but in that parish).
Also the valves came with much stiffer valve springs than ideal for road use, being typically around 60 lb/in. Racetech suggest 40 lb/in (7N/mm) is likely to be suitable for road use, and that is what I currently have fitted, the other chap has gone down to 25 lb/in. I have some of these lower rate springs to try, I find even at 40 lb/in the preload tends to be quite low just to avoid harshness on knobbly surfaces, 25 lb/in might make it easier to get that tuned out, physically more preload turns but lower rate once the disc starts to lift so accommodating the fast bumps.
You need to read up on the tuning principles and be prepared for some trial and error.
http://www.racetech.com/page/title/Emulators-How%20They%20Work
http://www.racetech.com/page/title/Emulator%20Tuning%20Guide

[Bibio]

the bypass holes are like the compression adjusters on cartridge forks. the more you open them up the less control of dive you get, these are only for slow velocity tuning. the valve/shim stack is for high velocity (bumps) which the popper valve on emulators does.

a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that the 'clickers' (slow velocity) on their forks are for 'comfort' when in fact they are there to tune the chassis movement during braking/accelerating. to get 'comfort' requires the valves/shim stacks (high velocity) to be altered. the same principles can be transferred to emulators.

i'm actually starting to think that it might be possible to create a shim stack to replace the spring. this would give different rates with high/med/low adjustment depending on the shim stack and the separator shims in the stack.

i dont know why someone hasn't come up with a valve/shim emulator that sits inside the damper rod.

[DomP]

the harshness is due to the emulators popper valve not being set properly.They behave nicely on smoother bumps just not rutted Herefordian pot holed roads. I suppose I could remove them and back the spring off a 1/4 turn but what a messy job!

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[Bibio]

nothing works on deep potholes unless you spend mega bucks :-(

[DomP]

There's plenty around here, they look like reservoirs after all the rain.

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[johnnyrod]

I've had Racetech ones in my curvy for quite a few years now. I've stuck with the standard emulator springs and set them to 2 turns of emulator preload. I did drill out the holes as I knew no better, but you only notice the difference at full compression, which for me is pretty rare.

The difference in riding on B-roads is pretty big, the front fairly floats over the smaller stuff and is only really bothered by the bigger ones. Brake dive is essentially unchanged. I use 15W generally, 20W didn't help much - I know that not all 15W are equal but it's a guide. In stock for the forks weren't bad but a bit crude, and choppy country roads really showed them up. All that's a distant memory now! I made the mistake of going for progressive springs, should have got linear, but on the plus side with a pillion you can squash all the softness out with the preload adjusters.