09-06-2017, 10:49 AM
Ohiorider,
Good on you to have posted the results of your project.
Tink, on your observation on the springs, I would say each oem spring is a 2 rate spring - but the rates are different from left and right side. So, overall there are 4 different rates involved. You can see this by the spacing between coil winding; there are 4 different size gaps. 2 gap sizes in the left and 2 in the right spring (the bottom and top of each spring has different gap sizes). When you put the 2 spring curves together, you get a 4 slope spring curve. On the Racetech rating of the oem spring, I have found they use an average value of a 2 rate spring, so a 0.75 Kg/mm would tell you probably have a 0.5 Kg/mm initial rate and 1.0 Kg/mm (or something like that).
I did not see any mention of the oem oil fill amount. I suspect the left fork takes less oil than the right. You can see this as the left fork has the longer spring, so the volume the spring takes up will leave less remaining volume to set the air volume to a target amount. The right fork has a shorter spring, so less spring volume means the oil level will be higher than the left fork. By swapping to the RT springs, the spring volume will be equal on both sides so the oil fill will be the same (?), likely to be closer to the oil fill level on the right side. The oil fill level sets the volume of the air chamber creating an air spring that adds to the steel spring rates. I'd guess the total net spring curve (steel and air) is a nice smooth[er] progressive (2nd order polynomial curve) rate set up vs a historical steeper rate in the last 1-2" of suspension compression for typical Honda damper rod oem setups.
Ohiorider - Did you go with RT GVE's since you had the fork open?
Jerry
Good on you to have posted the results of your project.
Tink, on your observation on the springs, I would say each oem spring is a 2 rate spring - but the rates are different from left and right side. So, overall there are 4 different rates involved. You can see this by the spacing between coil winding; there are 4 different size gaps. 2 gap sizes in the left and 2 in the right spring (the bottom and top of each spring has different gap sizes). When you put the 2 spring curves together, you get a 4 slope spring curve. On the Racetech rating of the oem spring, I have found they use an average value of a 2 rate spring, so a 0.75 Kg/mm would tell you probably have a 0.5 Kg/mm initial rate and 1.0 Kg/mm (or something like that).
I did not see any mention of the oem oil fill amount. I suspect the left fork takes less oil than the right. You can see this as the left fork has the longer spring, so the volume the spring takes up will leave less remaining volume to set the air volume to a target amount. The right fork has a shorter spring, so less spring volume means the oil level will be higher than the left fork. By swapping to the RT springs, the spring volume will be equal on both sides so the oil fill will be the same (?), likely to be closer to the oil fill level on the right side. The oil fill level sets the volume of the air chamber creating an air spring that adds to the steel spring rates. I'd guess the total net spring curve (steel and air) is a nice smooth[er] progressive (2nd order polynomial curve) rate set up vs a historical steeper rate in the last 1-2" of suspension compression for typical Honda damper rod oem setups.
Ohiorider - Did you go with RT GVE's since you had the fork open?
Jerry