Alternative Falco side stands

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#16 Post by **mangocrazy** » Sun May 14, 2017 8:58 pm

Gio wrote: I'm sure it steers really well, but I don't for the life of me know what difference to the rear end will be on that info on the height it is. damn that makes no sense, brain blockage lol.

Can anyone translate from the original Gio-speak?

#17 Post by **mangocrazy** » Sun May 14, 2017 9:02 pm

Greg wrote:On the subject of ride-height .... well, strictly speaking, steering angle, I went down a ring on the forks (which was all the high-bar conversion would let me have) and the difference in steering is very obvious, although having higher and wider bars will have made its own difference too.. It's much more willing to turn, and I'm tempted to lift the back a bit on the shock adjuster too.

I am still struggling though, with a very harsh ride from both ends and suspect I have more experimentation to do with settings.

G

If your bike is still on the original suspension settings, I'm not surprised. I found both ends far too harsh for my liking on OE suspension. But after a lot of fiddling it now feels damn near perfect. We've just come from a weekend of riding round North Yorks, Cumbria, Northimberland and Teeside and the bike performed faultlessly on a wide variety of road surfaces.

Greg · #18 Post by **Greg** » Sun May 14, 2017 11:40 pm

Right enough Mang.. I re-did the forks a while back but stuck with the factory weight oil - I suspect I could have gone a grade lighter, or at least now i could fiddle a bit with the settings as the front is a bit wild (unpredictable) over the bumps.

The rear on the other hand is a mystery. Even with the lovely red spring I bought from you the ride still feels harsh. I've got virtually zero preload, and have unwound the compression almost back to the top... The sag appears to be good though. That's what happens when you get too complicated in the suspension department with click for this and clicks for that ...

#19 Post by **mangocrazy** » Mon May 15, 2017 8:37 am

The thing with suspension is that what works for one person doesn't for another, so I'm always a bit wary about saying 'do this, do that...'

But for the front forks I junked the standard springs, which were really stiff (1.1 kg/mm rate) and replaced them with Hyperpro progressive springs. The other option was linear rate 0.9 kg/mm rate. That's nearly 20% softer than standard.

I also got hold of a set of Race-Tech Gold Valve compression pistons and installed them along with R-T's recommended valving. The difference was astonishing (in a good way)! As far as I can tell the standard pistons simply don't flow enough oil and no matter what you do with the compression adjusters it makes little or no difference. The bottleneck is in the pistons - the RT ones have much bigger ports and are 'flowed' - no square edges, but radiused to allow the oil to flow smoothly. The difference between RT pistons and OE was immediately obvious.

For the rear I junked the standard blue spring Sachs and bought an Ohlins off eBay. This was a big improvement (as you'd expect), but was still to harsh/firm for my liking. So I sent the shock off to Revs Racing with instructions to drastically reduce the compression damping, particularly the high-speed damping, and at the same time reduced the spring rate by around 12-13%. Now it's perfect for me. It was a bit of a saga, as I was switching between Falco and Mille linkages and different spring rates to suit, but I got there in the end.

What shock and linkages are you running? You've probably already told me, but memory is not what it was...

Greg · #20 Post by **Greg** » Mon May 15, 2017 9:39 am

I think the front is standard but the rear has your lovely red spring wrapped around a Penske 8987 'Triple Clicker'. It's the shock that worries me a bit because I've wound everything back to nearly zero and I can't feel much difference. From what I learned about the Penske it's a very adjustable unit and can be infinitely customised internally to suit individual requirements - it came off an RSV allegedly, but I wonder if it's got a race set-up inside.

I got halfway to installing the RSV swinger a couple of weeks ago but when the Falco arm was off teh bike I compared the two and to my eye they both looked exactly the same in terms of shock mountings and geometry.

#21 Post by **mangocrazy** » Mon May 15, 2017 11:57 am

I have zero knowledge of Penske shocks, although I know they are very highly regarded in the US. If it were me I'd give Revs Racing a call, describe your problems and ask them if they are prepared to check the shock and valving out and revalve it to your requirements. I seem to recall that they have a shock dyno they can put it on, which will quickly reveal how it works (or doesn't).

There's also the question of whether the shock suits the linkages you are using it with. What linkages do you have? The red spring I sold you was designed to be used with Falco linkages, not Mille ones. If you're using that spring with Mille linkages it will feel very harsh.

Greg · #22 Post by **Greg** » Mon May 15, 2017 4:20 pm

This is where it starts to get a bit convoluted - in my bleary eyes anyway..

I thought that the RSV shock had a different stroke which was why it needed the different triangle/bone combination to work with the falco arm...

It's at times like this that I wish I'd persevered with 3D modelling at Uni..

#23 Post by **mangocrazy** » Mon May 15, 2017 8:17 pm

Greg, the key really is what linkages you are using at present. If you are using Mille linkages, then the spring rate will be way too high for the linkages. If you're using Falco linkages, it should be good.

The very first Milles used the same linkage as the Falco, but after only a short while, the linkage ratio was revised to use a softer spring and give a longer stroke. The valving of the shock was also changed to suit the revised linkages. That linkage was used until 2003 for the Mille and 2005 for the Tuono.

From what you're saying, it sounds like you are using the later Mille linkages, but with a spring suited for Falco linkages.

Do you know what linkages you are using? The Falco linkages are almost an equilateral triangle; i.e. all the sides of the triangle are of similar length. The Mille triangles have two clearly longer sides and one shorter side. The dogbones are different as well, but I'm not so sure of the differences.

So - what linkages are you using?

Greg · #24 Post by **Greg** » Mon May 15, 2017 9:12 pm

Ahh .. that starts to make sense then, but fcuk knows where I got it from that the RSV linkages needed to be fitted too, because my logic always told me that if everything else matched then the links used should remain as before.

I'll throw the original links back in - equilateral triangle plates and short bones - and will see how it goes.

Oddly though, on the stock front spring should be 1.05, but these guys reckon I should be on a 1.00 which might explain the harsh front.

#25 Post by **mangocrazy** » Mon May 15, 2017 9:38 pm

Now it's starting to make sense, as you say. Put the Falco linkages in and work from there.

For the front forks, I'd say 1.0 kg/mm springs would still be too harsh. Race-Tech have a reputation of recommending more track-based settings. I'd go with 0.9 kg/mm or 0.95 if you're a bit of a pie eater....

Standard fork spring rates, like the shock springs, are around 12 - 15% too hard (IMHO).

Greg · #26 Post by **Greg** » Tue May 16, 2017 8:56 pm

Pie eater?? ha. There has been an inversion of the pie eating effect, with a very positive - or should that be negative - outcome in respect of my personal power to weight ratio..

Anyhoo, the old plates have been re-installed, the bearings were stuck and a bit rusty, but I pinged them all out and cleaned and greased everything up before reinstalling. The bearing felt marginally not perfect, but it was a basquillion times better than it was and will do nicely pending replacement with a new item.

Now the rear end is nice and squishy compared to the plank I thought was supposed to be an improvement. Time to get on with setting it up methinks...

#27 Post by **mangocrazy** » Wed May 17, 2017 10:52 pm

Excellent. As a starting point, I'd recommend you preload the spring by around 10% of its free length; i.e. if the spring free length was 160mm, then dial in 16mm preload as your starter for ten.

Greg · #28 Post by **Greg** » Thu May 18, 2017 10:48 am

lol - i'll have to take it out again then!

Maybe not, I'll just unwind it as far as I can haha..

Cheers

#29 Post by **mangocrazy** » Thu May 18, 2017 10:07 pm

Hi Greg, if you're happy with the way it is, then don't change it. That was just a suggestion for a starting point based on my experience.

Greg · #30 Post by **Greg** » Fri May 19, 2017 4:45 pm

Nooooo I was joshing!

I hadn't re-installed the exhaust so could still get my hands in there to do the twisting, but I did exactly that and unwound the collar until I could twist the spring by hand then just wound it up again by the amount you told me genuinely would be the perfect setting ...

But seriously, I have been losing a little poundage recently so I'm just going by a bounce test, and with everything set in the middle it feels just fine. I might try a quickie tonight to see, but the difference in just sitting on it is palpable.

I was looking at the front too, and of course as soon as the rear is improved the failings of the front become so much more obvious. I was thinking about what you said about the front spring rates - I have three GSXR forklegs and some scrap Falco legs (don't ask!) in the garage and pulled the springs out of them just in case they were interchangeable. The Suzy spring's ID is about 2mm smaller than the Falc's so they won't fit, but rate wise it's noticeably softer.

may have to bite the bullet and buy some...