Which fork leg should I fit the stronger spring in?

[mangocrazy]

But what leg should I fit the odd spring in?

Either - you won't notice the difference.

[Yorick]

monkeys-laughing.gif (246.96 KiB) Viewed 332 times

[Mr. Dazzle]

And the reason why manufacturers have started using asymmetrical damping is purely down to them saving the cost

Not purely. You do have a particularly cynical view of manufacturers Some of them do maybe, but not all of them.

In my last job I worked with a guy who in one of his last jobs worked rebuilding suspension for Öhlins. I can't remember the name of the outfit he worked for, but it was one of the few in the UK authorised by Öhlins to work on absolutely everything in their product range and maintain the warranty etc. He'd rebuild forks and shocks for everything up to WSB and MotoGP level. There were some top flight bits that had damping in either leg, in fact some of the stuff had all the damping in one leg and all the spring in the other. I find it very hard to believe the spanky race stuff is splitting it up just to save money.

[Yorick]

The forks in my Beta have separate damping in each leg. It's shit.
The Husky has conventional forks. It's leading all UK Enduro series.

[mangocrazy]

And the reason why manufacturers have started using asymmetrical damping is purely down to them saving the cost

Not purely. You do have a particularly cynical view of manufacturers Some of them do maybe, but not all of them.

In my last job I worked with a guy who in one of his last jobs worked rebuilding suspension for Öhlins. I can't remember the name of the outfit he worked for, but it was one of the few in the UK authorised by Öhlins to work on absolutely everything in their product range and maintain the warranty etc. He'd rebuild forks and shocks for everything up to WSB and MotoGP level. There were some top flight bits that had damping in either leg, in fact some of the stuff had all the damping in one leg and all the spring in the other. I find it very hard to believe the spanky race stuff is splitting it up just to save money.

It's not cynical - it's realistic. You surely should recognise this. If manufacturers can save money on precision machined components without degrading the riding experience for most punters, why wouldn't they? They go to inordinate lengths to shave fractions of a cent/penny off the price of (for example) fasteners by specifying a slightly cheaper layer of plating - why wouldn't they jump at the chance of deleting two major suspension components and simplifying the deign in the process? To me that's a complete no-brainer.

As for whether asymmetrical damping/springing/whatever is better than symmetrical, I wouldn't know, but I doubt it. The only experience I've had of it is on the Duke 690 R and I've felt the need to make a fair few changes to the forks. I was toying with replacing the entire internals, but have since seen sense. I do know that Gareth at Reactive suspension thinks that recent WP forks are a very poor design, but that's not because of the asymmetry, just because it's a poor design.

The over-the-counter Ohlins FGR300 MotoGP & Superbike Forks have symmetrical damping and springing. Whether the stuff that the Factories use are also symmetrical, I suspect only the teams and Ohlins know.

Ohlins_WSBK_forks.JPG (115.36 KiB) Viewed 316 times

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

The forks in my Beta have separate damping in each leg. It's shit.
The Husky has conventional forks. It's leading all UK Enduro series.

You don't really believe that anyone racing and leading a championship has standard forks do you?

And there's nothing unusual about having rebound damping in one leg and compression in the other, it makes a great deal of sense really, rather than having one cartridge trying to do both and being a bit of a compromise, you can set them up independently of each other, you need a lot more rebound damping than compression, a lot of bikes don't have any compression damping.

[Yorick]

The forks in my Beta have separate damping in each leg. It's shit.
The Husky has conventional forks. It's leading all UK Enduro series.

You don't really believe that anyone racing and leading a championship has standard forks do you?

And there's nothing unusual about having rebound damping in one leg and compression in the other, it makes a great deal of sense really, rather than having one cartridge trying to do both and being a bit of a compromise, you can set them up independently of each other, you need a lot more rebound damping than compression, a lot of bikes don't have any compression damping.

WP know more than me. They'd fit them to the customer bikes if they were better.

[wull]

Beemers to name one, the S1000rr.

My R1 cup bike was shod with WP suspension, loved that bike.

[mangocrazy]

I've just looked on Ohlins website, and their soon to be announced FGR400 forks do indeed have rebound and compression damping in different legs. And these forks are (allegedly) based on WSBK experience. I can definitely see that having the two phases separate and unable to affect and interfere with each other would be of benefit.

So when do we go back to twin shocks, with one side handling rebound and the other handling compression damping?

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

So when do we go back to twin shocks, with one side handling rebound and the other handling compression damping?

It would be a good idea to have separate dampers for each, what you could do is remove the damper from the spring and use a progressive linkage for the spring and twin dampers that worked linear.

Suzuki tried separating the spring and damping on the TL1000s, but the rotary damper was a bit crap.

[mangocrazy]

So when do we go back to twin shocks, with one side handling rebound and the other handling compression damping?

It would be a good idea to have separate dampers for each, what you could do is remove the damper from the spring and use a progressive linkage for the spring and twin dampers that worked linear.

I quite like the concept, and linear damping would be easier to manage, but the problem would be in the packaging. Trying to fit 3 units in the space that one currently occupies would be problematic. There would also be a weight and cost penalty.

Suzuki tried separating the spring and damping on the TL1000s, but the rotary damper was a bit crap.

You sir, are a master of understatement. That rotary damper was truly awful. Rock hard when the oil was cold, virtually no damping when hot. I junked it and fitted an Ohlins replacement. Made a massive improvement.

[Mr. Dazzle]

FWIW has used rotary damping on and off for ages (on an off in time that is, not literally). An F1 damper would cost more than a TL1000 sold for new though probably.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

So when do we go back to twin shocks, with one side handling rebound and the other handling compression damping?

It would be a good idea to have separate dampers for each, what you could do is remove the damper from the spring and use a progressive linkage for the spring and twin dampers that worked linear.

I quite like the concept, and linear damping would be easier to manage, but the problem would be in the packaging. Trying to fit 3 units in the space that one currently occupies would be problematic. There would also be a weight and cost penalty.

Suzuki tried separating the spring and damping on the TL1000s, but the rotary damper was a bit crap.

You sir, are a master of understatement. That rotary damper was truly awful. Rock hard when the oil was cold, virtually no damping when hot. I junked it and fitted an Ohlins replacement. Made a massive improvement.

You could have the spring where it is now and dampers where twin shocks would go.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Twin shocks are gonna be way less stiff though. On a fork the set up of two (or four, depending on how you look at it) tubes, the wheel axle and the triple clamps is pretty stiff. That's part of the reason the wheel axle is a hollow tube BTW, makes it stiffer. The whole thing is pretty compact and stiff, so you can deal with mismatches between the legs pretty well.

Twin shocks in the other hand are much more spread out. Youre gonna have much more difficulty handling the mismatch between the two in a sensible way.

[mangocrazy]

FWIW has used rotary damping on and off for ages (on an off in time that is, not literally). An F1 damper would cost more than a TL1000 sold for new though probably.

One of the problems with the TL rotary damper was that it only contained about one third of the amount of oil that a coventional damper held, which led to premature thinning and breakdown of the damping oil. I'm sure there are rotary dampers that work well, but the one in the TL didn't.

[Demannu]

I've just looked on Ohlins website, and their soon to be announced FGR400 forks do indeed have rebound and compression damping in different legs. And these forks are (allegedly) based on WSBK experience. I can definitely see that having the two phases separate and unable to affect and interfere with each other would be of benefit.

So when do we go back to twin shocks, with one side handling rebound and the other handling compression damping?

So now you're arguing with Ohlins.
Might as well as you're ignoring the opinion of a respected motor engineer (Mr D) and a random bloke with 35 year's race spannering experience.

You can have the last word btw.

[KungFooBob]

espected motor engineer (Mr D

Respected, with that haircut!

[mangocrazy]

I've just looked on Ohlins website, and their soon to be announced FGR400 forks do indeed have rebound and compression damping in different legs. And these forks are (allegedly) based on WSBK experience. I can definitely see that having the two phases separate and unable to affect and interfere with each other would be of benefit.

So when do we go back to twin shocks, with one side handling rebound and the other handling compression damping?

So now you're arguing with Ohlins.
Might as well as you're ignoring the opinion of a respected motor engineer (Mr D) and a random bloke with 35 year's race spannering experience.

You can have the last word btw.

You could always try reading what I actually said, rather than reading what you wish I'd said. How you can construe what I wrote above as 'arguing with Ohlins' is beyond me. I give up.

[Mr. Dazzle]

espected motor engineer (Mr D

Respected, with that haircut!

That what?