Yes, you need to get rid of the damper rods!!!
The better method of doing business is like you find in ‘cartridge’ forks – prolly best if you do a bit of goggle-fu - but essentially in a cartridge fork you have ‘petals’, these are little thin/flexible discs of springy metal that close a much larger damping hole. When you try and pass fluid through the hole/petal (compress the fork), the petal bends/opens allowing flow (hence movement) it provides the physical damping in much the same way as an damper rod at this point, but the beauty of using petals is that you essentially have a variable diameter orifice so you can have a much wider range of controlled operation!! Lovely!!
Picture it, the quicker you you try and push fluid through, the more the petals will bend/open allowing faster flow of fluid, unlike the damper rod
So, logically buy ‘stacking’ the appropriate stiffness petals you can get much better controlled high speed damping, whilst still allowing controlled low speed damping!!
An ‘emulator’ is basically just that, it is emulating this superior cartridge setup. In the SV you drill the damper rods to lessen/try and negate their effect and slot the emulator in there. The emulator has/is a little (yet basic) petal stack – job done!! … unfortunately its not as good as a full cartridge as the emulator only works on the compression damping (and is very basic/crude in design) …