Putting things back together after adjusting the gold emulator and have a question. RaceTech says 165mm for my recommended level but I have +2 damper tubes, which when the forks are extended will create more air space. So, is my level 165 + 50.8mm? TrackerDie gives the level in ounces, and I'm not going to drain and refill. I need to know milimemters. Any help is appreciated.

 

Never mind. I don't know. I've never used extended damper tubes, just extended stanchion tubes. If they increase the travel of the fork you need more airspace. If they don't I'd expect you'd go with the standard measurement.

 

They won't increase travel, just height. Where I get confused is at sag, with preload, the air space above the oil will be greater because the fork tube is extended higher. I thought I had this figured out last winter when I did the original install but as I'm checking my working while putting things together I don't have confidence that the measurement is right.

The 22oz measurement from TrackerDie is no help because the shop manual uses inches so I can't even compare. I can call them next week, but they were less than helpful last year so I don't have any hope that'll I'll get any better service this time.

 

Racetech likes to use fork oil level for bottoming resistance. I would set it the same. 165mm. This requires that you use there springs as volume of the spring makes a big difference on where the level should be. You might want to add or subtract the volume of the spring to spacer per inch but I would assume it's close.. Maybe go a little lower as with extended forks there is less load on the front tire.. It's not an exact science.

 

Question, does anyone know for a fact, can you remove the bottom drain fork screw only (quickly to swap out the screw), without loosing much fork oil? this due the screw heads on mine are rounded off.

 

only if you flip the leg upside down.

 

Thanks for chiming in Max. I am using RaceTech springs that are stock length. My wife and I ran through the math (she's a civil/hydraulic engineer) and came to the same conclusion as you but you pointing out how the oil level is used was very helpful, and after going through my RaceTech materials thoroughly found more information on the same. So, I went with 165mm and found I was actually low at tear down. I wasn't measuring and didn't notice how low it was, but it was low enough I think to have an impact. I also found my initial preload was too short as well and fixed that on reassembly. I'm feeling real good about the final assembly and that I fixed some of my mistakes from last winter while fine tuning the gold emulator. Next winter I think I'll just sell the internals and go with the RaceTech carts 🤪