Suspension people

[goanna_38]

I personally think they are still a bit grumpy after losing the war and this is their private little bit of revenge.

[chameleon]

probably boils down to tooling. they got millions of dollars invested in machiens to make useless shocks and they want to get their moneys worth. No competition, no motivation. If the koreans were making "jap" bikes you'd see some radical improvements I bet.

[Bear]

Goanna what sort of $$ are you looking at for the Racetech upgrade? Is this the guy at Beerwah

Cheers

[goanna_38]

Yeah, MPE at Beerwah. Dunno how many ZZR1100s he does though. Gave me a bit of a bum steer on fork oil when I bought racetech cartridge emulators off of him. Mind you, a friend of mine got his Hayabusa supension done (springs and racetech valves both ends) and and another friend got the same done to his R1150gs BMW and they both rave about him. So it is possible I caught him on a bad day. Based on the ravings of my friends I will get him to do my rear shock (sometime in the future) and see how he goes. Just have to deal with a bit of a cash retention problem that we've have had since me and the missus started producing kids 16 years ago.

[Barrabob]

I have also heard good things about the racetech guy at beerwah but when we where getting the 03/04zx6rs done he didnt have the gear we needed.

I know where theres another guy down the coast that quoted me some pretty reasonable prices to reoil and regas my penske shock and whitepower damper if anyone is interested he has a racing background so knows what he is doing.

[Bear]

Yeah, i've heard conflicting reports about MPE as well.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Chameleon's upgrade goes with Steve-should transform the ZZR. I'm gonna hang off til then.
Barrabob would you have any contact details for the coast guy? Didn't know there was one here.
Thanks guys

[chameleon]

I'm looking forward to seeing how Chameleon's upgrade goes with Steve-should transform the ZZR. I'm gonna hang off til then.

I think the quality of my upgrade will have a lot more to do with the ohlins shock than the guys installation work. Perhaps it could be purchased cheaper online, installed cheaper? We talked for the better part of an hour about shocks and fork upgrades as he showed me around the workshop, picking up bits and explaining how they function. It was all double dutch for a while but in the end I had a fair idea of the concepts behind damping compression and rebound in the front and back. I had settled on the Wilbers because of the lower price and he didn't push the ohlins but after I knew the basics of the shock function the Ohlins stood out like dog's balls as the superior shock for the dollars spent. It all boiled down to remote preload adjustment, if the preload is out, the whole thing is out and no amount of adjustment to the damping will make it ride true like it should.
I don't think there are any cheap shortcuts to getting competent handling out of the big ZZR's. Even new they were a slouch through the corners unless the corners were billiard table smooth. Replace an old shock with an as-new rebuild or a similar upgrade and like Goanna says, you'll be back where you started. Steve assured me it would handle bumpy/ripply corners like they were smooth and for 2.3 Gees I'll hold him to his word.

In the end it's really all about safety for this rider. I'll go the extra $$ if I'll get a safer ride.

[bonester]

Chameleon, have you considered fitting ZZR1200 forks? I reckon this would be the biggest improvement you could do to your 1100- they are cartridge forks, rather than the 1100s damping rods. They would be a bolt in except for the front guard- you would need a 1200 one, or fab mounts for your 1100 one. (I'd do that.) The late (04/05) ZZR12 forks have more adjustability. You could try ZRX 11/ 12 forks too, which are very similar to the 1200, but with better adjustability again, with 6 pot brakes too, BUT they run 310mm brake rotors unlike the ZZR1100 D model (yours) 320mm rotors. Might be a bit hard to get the brakes right unless you fit ZRX rotors. Pity Kawasaki didn't get it right in the first place....

[chameleon]

Never thought of it Bonester, or rather, never was told it was an option. The overhaul of my forks will be about $450, with new springs and valves to top them off. No damping adjustment on the fork then, all preset unless you pull them back apart but if the load up front doesn't change much from ride to ride it doesn't matter so I was told. I guess if I'd heard of the option before I would have looked into it but my springs are ordered and on their way so I'm pretty well committed there.

What's the difference with the cartridge forks? What makes them superior to racetec springs and valves?

[bonester]

Damping rod forks rely on a fixed orifice for the fork oil to be pumped through when damping- so they have a fixed rate of damping, and bumps come in all shapes and sizes. AFAIK the cartridge forks have a stack of shims that vary in damping rates- once the amount of damping needed is exceeded in the first shim the next shim comes into play, and when the second shim is exceeded, the third shim comes into play and so on- so the cartridge fork has a better go at damping- not only that- there is a limit to how fast the oil can be pumped through the damping holes in the damping rod fork and if this is exceeded, the fork can hydraulic lock- on my ZZR1100, if I hit a big enough bump in a corner, the forks would lock up and toss me (and the bike) onto the other side of the road...frikkin scary.
The Gold Valves are supposed to make the damping rod forks behave like a cartridge fork. Haven't used them myself so I dunno how effective they are.

[chameleon]

Hmmm. Sounds like a good system. In the upgrade I will be getting they drill out the damping holes in the rods, making them huge and uneffective. Then they attach the valve to the top, which is actuated by the pressure from below and regulated by a small spring. The bigger the bump, the higher the pressure and the more the little valve spring is compressed. As this spring compresses the valve opens more and more, allowing varying rates of oil flow. One thing I was told is that this is adjustable, the shim sets in the valves can be swapped around although you have to pull the top of the fork off to get at them.

[goanna_38]

I am still fiddling with my front end after installing Racetech emulators. Got to the point where it is just about impossible to tell if I have too much compression damping or not enough rebound. Just a little bit harsh. So to eliminate one or the other am planning on changing fork oil again. Started at 20 wt. then went to 10wt. Gonna try 15wt. next and lighter preload springs in emulators. Still better than standard but not as good yet as I expect it can be.

[chameleon]

its pretty hitech stuff I recon goanna, fluid dynamics, hydraulics and all that shit. Might pay to get some expert advice, there is no doubt an optimal fluid/spring combination to suit the weight and riding demands you have there? How big did you drill out the damper holes?

[goanna_38]

5/16 of an inch if memory serves. Damper rods already had 4 holes in them each so just had to drill 2 new ones and open up the other 4. Part of my problem is that over small bumps suspension is a tad firm but not uncomfortable. Over big bumps it starts to get either too firm or the preload is letting spring back a bit too fast. Can't really tell because rear shock/spring is too stiff. At 110 km/h the rear wheel hits the bump about .05 of a second after the front wheel does so, it gets a bit difficult diagnosing front if the back is trying to kill you. If I had external adjustment on both rebound and compression it would be a piece of cake. Change one and see if it gets better or worse. Having to change fork oil weight to alter rebound and pull valves out and tweak them to adjust compression makes it all a bit of a pain. I am thinking of modifying the original rebound adjusters and putting them back in. If I do it right I should be able to alter rebound with a small piece of conduit with a grove cut in one end. After I pull the fork caps and the springs and such out, of course. Still have to be easier than changing oil weight. Changing oil weight also changes compression so it all snowballs. Just have to carve all but the ball retention hole out of the middle of the original adjusters and they should pop straight back in. Then if it works I can adjust one or the other independantly with out altering the other. Thats the plan anyway.

[chameleon]

Looks like u have sussed it all out there goanna. Beyond me I'm afraid. If it's in the manual I'll do it but mechanical mods? Never had the courage myself. It would be good to have a comprehensive record *with pics* of your efforts, when it's fully tweeked that is