forking around again!

For those who are thinking about suspension upgrades:

After spending a fair few ££s on a Matris set for my K3S, I decided that although it had improved the forks no end over thicker oil and Ohlins springs, it had taken it too far the other way. The front was too hard.
I thought it might get better if I gave it time to bed in, and it did, but only minutely.
Looking at it, the matris system comes with a vavle assembly, springs, spacer tubes, pre-load adjusters, and oil. The issue I thought came with the springs and spacers - The spacer is about 7 inches long, making it about 2-3 inches shorter than the spring. Not alot of travel. I guess this is good for the track, but not too clever on the roads. The front felt very skittish, and not really that well planted. It's fine at speed on A roads, dual carridgeways etc, but on back roads, or slower roads where the surface isn't perfect I had no trust.

This began to niggle

I took a mad decision - I removed the Matris springs and spacers, and replaced them with the Ohlins springs and original spacers. My biggest issue - I can't use the very pretty pre-load adjusters from Matris as they are much longer than the OE adjusters. I guess that I can knock up some more spacers at the right length so that I can - but I'll deal with that later.

I then decided to look at my sag
Static = 10mm
Rider = 20mm

Sound a little firm, but I went out for a test ride, and it's fantastic!!
Yes, it is a little firm, and I will have to adjust the preload on the rear, BUT it is so smooth! Firm, but takes bumps, holes, etc so well.

Brakes are great as well - OE callipers with braided lines, but the firming up of the suspension has made a great difference.

Summing up (for the road) - Matris internals? Save your money (unless you can buy just their valve kit), it's good - but too good!

[jambo]

Essentially it sounds like you are happy with their damping modifications (the major reason for buying the kit) but feel that the spring and spacer combination was wrong for you. This will either be down to them creating a kit with too much preload, or springs that are too firm. If it was a preload problem you could cut down their spacers to remove it, a spring rate issue requires the replacement of the spring. Know what rate the Matris & Ohlins springs are?

Jambo

[yorkie_chris]

AFAIK ohlins linears are .80 as standard

+1 about the kit being set up wrong, just reducing the preload a bit would probably have done the same thing.

the preload was set at minimum - it just had a very short spring and long spacer (7 inch spacer compared to the aprox 2 inch spacer I used with the Ohlins - More like a bandit setup than a SV). Matris sue dots on their springs and this had two dots. I'd like to use the Matris preload adjuster as it's very bling, so much better than the OE ones, just have to create a new set of spacers.
I won't nkock Matris on build quality - all good kit, but just too track bias for the road (and my abilities)

Originally Posted by Caddy2000

the preload was set at minimum - it just had a very short spring and long spacer (7 inch spacer compared to the aprox 2 inch spacer I used with the Ohlins

unless spring binds it makes no difference what length it is.

Mtris dont do any lighter spring than a .85 and some have come through with the wrong springs(.90/.95), if you look in the instructions it says what the dots relate to.
but the .80 is more compliant for the road