I've owned my air-fork Glide since new in 1990. The system, with anti-dive, has a lot of attractions, however it also has some serious short-comings! The air we can add is additional to the stock springs, which we can do away with by simply using custom springs, which you mention. Simply using Race Tech springs matched to your weight will remove the need to add air.
The other short-coming is poor damping. I have Emulators in my Sporty and to be frank cannot recommend them, however Intiminators get good reviews on HDF and I would certainly consider them as an upgrade. They should improve damping, giving an improved ride.
The problems with adding air are many do not know how to maintain the system so the air leaks out. This system works in theory as adding or lowering the air spring, the distance between the oil and fork cap. By compressing the air you are decreasing the distance from the top of the oil to the fork cap. An air tight seal must be maintained and the oil seal (top of slider) is below the oil level once everything is put together. This is a chart and how dampening is effected by adding 10mm of fork oil at a time.
This is just a representation showing the differences & possibilities. This is on a compression side of a 30mm Ohlins. You can see the difference in tune-ability & shows the benefit on understanding how a component works.
The RaceTech is a valve that only controls oil flow in one direction.
The cartridge emulator sits on top of the damper rod tube and can only control the compression as the shim against the holder can only open on the rebound stroke. It plays no part in the rebound stroke. Look at it and figure it out for yourself. The oil is coming up through the center of the damper rod tube and being stopped by the gold valve/shim plate check valve. To visualize it better here is an assembly.
On the compression stroke the piston is moved up the fork tube because the damper rod is bolted onto the slider and the damper rod is through the check valve which slows down the oil somewhat. Look at the holes in the bottom of the damper rod. The pistons compress the oil and part of the oil "Bleeds" through the tiny compression holes just below the pistons. The oil locks prevent damage on bottom out so they say as it starts to close up the oil near bottom out.
I do many Baggers and with thinking out of the box I make these systems work better than the "other" system by a long shot. I do not follow the RT directions and disagree with their theory on suspension. I have never done any 39mm's, just 41's & 49's. For under $300, it is a good investment. It is no way near the performance of a real cartridge but I prefer this system over the cheap gas cartridge as it actually controls/smooths the ride out. Springs(straight rate) & emulators, think about it, a good deal for what you can get out of it in both (harder to do) spring pre-load, compression & rebound adjust-ability.
I did another prototype using a rod for an additional piston, a tube sealed off at both sides, emulator(bottom) & seal head with the piston rod on top that was the spring preload tube & spring pre-load adjusters through the fork cap. This worked much better.
Yes, you can use compressed air and emulators.
Last edited by FastHarley; 10-09-2015 at 01:57 PM.
10-01-2015, 03:35 PM
Race-tech Kit for Air-Ride forks?
