Racetech springs. which ones?

rk8950

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Bike is 05 fz6. I weigh 220 pounds. They call for .95 but was wondering if I should get the 1.0? I was thinking getting the .95 and 15 wt oil. I will not ever be on a track I dont think and just use the bike to go out and play around on. Has many people near my weight done the swap?
 

lawlberg

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If I remember correctly, I think that I was going to get .95 on mine, and I only weigh 175, so I'd say that 1.0 is probably a good bet for you, either way it'll be miles better than the stock suspension.

Thanks for the reminder, I need to get around to ordering the springs.
 

lawlberg

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If I remember correctly, I think that I was going to get .95 on mine, and I only weigh 175, so I'd say that 1.0 is probably a good bet for you, either way it'll be miles better than the stock suspension.

Thanks for the reminder, I need to get around to ordering the springs.

Nope I'm wrong. Going to get the .90 - recommended spring is about .87 for my weight.

It's putting you in as .93, you should probably do .95 instead of 1.0kg
 

rk8950

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I was thinking that also. I didnt want to get front to stiff and throw the back out of balance. Im sure I need a stiffer rear now but the rear of the bike does good.
 

Carlos840

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Nope I'm wrong. Going to get the .90 - recommended spring is about .87 for my weight.

It's putting you in as .93, you should probably do .95 instead of 1.0kg

I think this is a good call, the racetech calculator recommended .88kg/mm for street use and .92 kg/mm for racing for my weight (185lbs) i weight 185 lbs without gear, and went with .90mm/kg springs.

This gave me perfect static sag to rider sag ratio and with some 10w fork oil really improved the ride a lot!
If you can afford it/do the work i would really recommend you get some emulators to, springs and oil are nice, but emulators are really where the magic happens!

I did both upgrades separately, ie did oil and springs, rode a few months, then added emulators, and the difference with the emulators was a huge improvement over springs and oil alone...
 

rk8950

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I think this is a good call, the racetech calculator recommended .88kg/mm for street use and .92 kg/mm for racing for my weight (185lbs) i weight 185 lbs without gear, and went with .90mm/kg springs.

This gave me perfect static sag to rider sag ratio and with some 10w fork oil really improved the ride a lot!
If you can afford it/do the work i would really recommend you get some emulators to, springs and oil are nice, but emulators are really where the magic happens!

I did both upgrades separately, ie did oil and springs, rode a few months, then added emulators, and the difference with the emulators was a huge improvement over springs and oil alone...

I got the .95's and I had them change the oil to 10wt. What exactly do the emuulators do?
 

Carlos840

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There is a lot of information about emulators on their website:

Emulators-How They Work

Basically they simulate a cartridge fork, they are a little valve that you add on top of your damper rod that controls compression, this allows you to control compression and rebound separately.

The springs are just there to control sag, they make sure that the bike can support it's own weight and the rider's weight. The damping rod or cartridge controls compression and rebound, ie the speed at witch the bike dives under braking and comes back up once you release the brakes, the way the suspension deals with road imperfection, this is all down to damping.

In a damping rod fork you can influence damping by changing the oil weight, but you cannot control them independently, meaning that if you go to thicker oil to slow compression you will also slow rebound a lot, making the suspension very sluggish and unresponsive. By using emulators, you can set the compression with the valves, and set the rebound with the oil weight, they are completely independent.

It sounds very technical but is pretty easy to do and setup, and is really night and day.
To me the difference between going from stock to "springs + 10w oil" was nothing compared to what going from "springs + 10w oil" to "springs + 15w oil+ emulators" was...

But then having this in the front made the rear feel very poor and i ended up changing the shock to!

Here is my thread on the subject:

http://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-general-discussion/53102-final-motorcycle-update.html
 
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rtw

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Bike is 05 fz6. I weigh 220 pounds. They call for .95 but was wondering if I should get the 1.0? I was thinking getting the .95 and 15 wt oil. I will not ever be on a track I dont think and just use the bike to go out and play around on. Has many people near my weight done the swap?

I weight 190 and I got the 0.95 with 15wt. I really like the ride. They recommended 0.90 on their web site. Thus, I would go just a bit heavier than they suggest. 1.0 would make sense in that case.

RTW
 

Carlos840

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How many cc's oil are you guys using, or do they measure oil height?

Oil height is more precise, since you don't know hoe much oil was left in the fork after draining... If it was a brand new fork, or a fork that had been completely disassembled i might use cc's, but if all you did was tip the fork upside down you are bound to have some oil left in there.

Either way, it's 467cc, or 134mm of space measured without the spring and spacer and with the fork leg compressed to it's maximum.
 
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