NC30 Cartridge Fork Issue

[magg]

Have completed building and fitting my left compression / right rebound forks, just waiting for a chance to test ride. Took a stab at the valving, hopefully the the quick cartridge removal system will take some of the pain out of shim changes. A stationary bounce test confirms I at least have compression adjustment at the top of the left fork leg and rebound adjustment at the top of the right fork leg.

[magg]

First test ride has been encouraging, performance comparable to OEM setup, with usual too much high speed compression damping. At least my guess at shim stacks was not completely off and gives me a starting point. So out comes the compression cartridge. Dive under brakes appears less dramatic, I think because the low speed compression bleed is no longer a function of the rebound bleed setting. I now have an independent low speed compression adjustment.

Rebound settings I will leave until I am happy with the compression side.

[999Gomerz]

Quick question please:

What is the diameter of the NC30 Cartridges, I assumed they are 20mm but reading this post makes me think they are smaller.

Cheers,

[magg]

They are 20mm.

[magg]

Still experimenting with re-valving the cartridges to my liking but the five minutes to remove or install the cartridge without touching any other part of the suspension certainly increases one's enthusiasm to tackle the task.

If only the rear end was so easy, just removing the shock is hard enough without the complication of re-gassing after ever valve change.

[dx400r]

Am watching this with great interest. Best of luck with this magg.

Do you think this could be done with nc35 forks? Supposedly they are the same internally right?

[magg]

dx4 I cannot see why not, as you say they are the same internals are the same, or very similar. Even if you retain the comp/rebound valving in both legs, OEM style, you can still arrange for quick removal of the cartridges although the modifications are more complicated because of the 8 mm retaining bolt size.

[magg]

If the rain would stop I could do some road testing, three weeks now! It is supposed to be summer.

With the weather, could only manage one test ride after the last compression valving change, which appeared to produce only a minor improvement in ride quality.

So while waiting for the sun to come out again, have made more changes. Machined off the face of the compression piston so that there is now 6 ports operating on the shims, not three as in the OEM design. Because the one cartridge performs only one function now, there is no need for the check valve on the piston. More ports means more oil flow and more control over the shim valving, that's my theory anyway.

The quick change system certainly inspires one to make changes. If I had to remove the wheel and drain the oil to remove the cartridges and then reassemble them again for each each fork leg each time I wanted to do a valving change, I thing the enthusiasm would wear thin very soon.

[dx400r]

Very cool stuff magg. How much track testing have you managed? Also do you know any more on the NC35 fork side of things are your test subjects limited? :)

If class rules forced me back to OE forks then I would be talking to you about shipping my forks to Australia!

[magg]

Still playing with the valving. The summer here has not been normal, lots of rain and if not actually raining it looks like it could.

Your NC35 a track bike, you looking for quick removal or independent comp/reb adjustment or both?

My bike strictly road which IMO is either harder to get right or the compromises are bigger. At the moment I am trying to limit the compromises.