Free spring length?

Hey all, one the anoraks among us. I'm after the free spring length for a '99. I've had a scoot round the site but, alas cannot spot the information. I've found the oil level of 165mm if this is right for this model and also does someone know the spacer length? I ask as personally I find this amount of sag in the front suspension to be way too excessive, it must use nearly half the fork travel before it takes the weight of the motorcycle. The measuments I get from the ones in it are - Preload spacer: 198mm and the free spring length to be 318mm +/-2.

[embee]

Not sure what the nominal spec is, but I've recently replaced my SK1 (2001) springs, which will be the same as yours.

The K-tech http://www.k-tech.uk.com/ linear replacements I fitted are 8.5N/mm (stock SV are 7.09N/mm), and have the serial reference 35-315-85, that's 35mm O/D, 315mm long, 8.5N/mm (or 0.85kg/mm if you prefer).

With std springs I had 6mm spacers fitted for sag, but with the stiffer springs the sag comes just right for me without the extra spacers (just the std ones fitted).

The Suzuki manual gives the service limit as 308mm length.

Huge improvement, a trifle stiffer than ideal for me at 12st but loads better than the stock items, 10W oil is fine too with these. The manual gives oil level as 102mm (fully compressed, springs removed). I seem to recall I used 106mm to reduce the effect of the slightly overstiff springs.

Cheers Embee, it would appear that the springs are of the right length but, I still feel that bike sits too low in the front. The rear seems fine, even with rider the sag appears to be acceptable at around 50mm but it is a road bike so they usually sag a lot more than you'd expect from a trackday bike or a road bike that's been set up. I'm wondering if it's been tinkered with on the preload spacer to lower the ride hight at the front at some point in it's life. i don't wanna go banging spacers in it, upsetting the front end geometry if this is how they're supposed to be. The spacer doesn't look like it's been cut down but it could have been replaced with a shorter one. If the length of the spacer is listed in a manual it would be of great help if someone could look it up for me, I'm not getting a manual here till hopefully mid week when it arrives.

[embee]

Sounds like yours is probably just standard, they are very soft as stock at the front. A quick search on front forks etc will come up with loads of stuff on the various stages of improving it.

From what I recall the front is ideal for someone about 60kg (235-240kg bike+rider). Racetech have a spring calculator option on their site
http://www.racetech.com/evalving/eng...ngname=english

The cheapest effective mod is simply uprate the springs to suit your weight, it really is worth the effort/cost. I rode for quite a long time with spacers and slightly heavier oil just to mask the problem, but it really isn't very effective. Others on here will have a lot more info on emulators or alternative forks.