On a switchback?

 

Not quite sure what "wheel skipping" is. Maybe extension is "too slow?" This can be fixed via fork oil viscosity change. Stiction can also be a culprit. Most noted when using fork seals OTHER than OEM.

 

Max Headflow
And I did mean turns not clicks. (thinking of my old sport bike) The fork oil is, left oil level 140mm 7wt, right oil level 140mm blend 15/20 wt. I see factory spec was left 147 and right 129. I am assuming the 140 reco came from Racetech?

Wow. Thanks Norty Flatz. I just read up on Stichion! That would very possibly be whats going on hear. Never even considered this possiblity. I am going to mount a camera on my forks so I can see if they are moving continuosly on a smooth road. I know he put in non oem seals when the racetech system was installed. I definately will check this out.

"Quote from a BMW site"
" A normally operating fork will just about never stop bouncing. It will seem as it the lower leg is very busy. It might move 1/8" to 1/2," but the important thing is that it is constantly moving up and down. It is maybe better described as a vibration. If it only moves about once every 1/2 or 1 second and moves a bit more distance, maybe 1/2" to 1" then that is stiction. If it seldom moves more than once in a few seconds and always moves an inch, or more, that is serious stiction. Stiction begins at the axle. If the axle pinch bolts are torqued too tight it can cause stiction, which is what you are describing as your problem."

I do not think I would call it skipping. If I hit a pebble on the road my stock setup would not have transmited to my handle bars but now I feel every pebble. Kind of like running a tire at very high pressure vs normal. Bear in mind I am nit picking something here that most people may not even notice. Some roads are quiet and some are loud. In a car this tranmits into cabin noise. On my Switchback since I put the emulators in I just notice (feel) more road noise. They call it chatter. Its like the first quarter inch of fork movement is to stiff. Driving down a backroad (we have no freeways here) with my stock setup the bike was smooth (quiet) as butter. I am just saying now I feel every little change in pavement quality. I am up for any and all suggestions. I will say my installer up in North Idaho specializes in dirt bikes and has limited road bike experience but he has done hundeds of Racetech setups..

 

Sounds like you need to adjust the emulators.....too stiff I think.

 

On thing you all need to know is I reinstalled the forks myself. After reading all of this stuff about how important it is to properly install, align the forks and wheel and not over tighten pinbolts and triple tree clamp. I may have binding forks. I never knew there was some much detail in just installed forks and wheels. Amazing. I will start there first

 

I had the same problem on my 39mm FXD front tubes except that the dive was so bad in heavy braking and bumps that the front fender was hitting my engine guard top mount.

Progressive springs and 15 weight oil with a complete rebuild on the tubes at the same time and it rides solid.

 

Well I think I have eliminated Stichion as the problem. I rode today and put my finger on the fork while riding. It was constanly moving smoothly but only about 3/8 of an inch.
I guess I will go for emulater setting next

 

While I've worked on a few emulator bikes and a few cartridge forks I've not worked on a cartridge/emulator fork. Since it looks like you replaced the compression valve in the cartridge side and add a compression valve (emulator) to the STD fork side, it wouldn't surprise me if you have too much compression damping. The thing is, which damping unit is causing the issue.. You might want to simply pull the emulator and replace with a spacer to see if that helps.

One thing to note is that adding compression damping to forks means you do feel the road more. Here is a pic from racetech on whet you get when messing with compression damping.




Notice the tendency for stiffer compression damping to increase stability at the expense of "plushness". It a balance between too is where you want to be.. Still you will feel the road more..

IME, the Racetech compression valving on DX cartridge forks is stiff. In fact it's stiff enough that I needed to lower the fork springs from 0.9 to 0.8 kg/mm and am still not using full travel. RT recently changed the spring requirements from 0.9 to 0.785 kg/mm for my rider weight on the DX and the FXD forks now say 0.835 kg/mm. Not sure if it's due to damping differences but the FXD forks have about 1/2 inch less travel.

IMO, some of the initial RT settings are off.

 

Logical thinking Max. Thanks. I think I agree fully. I love the traction and control in the twisty bumps and yesterday started realizing it's never gonna ride like a Cadillac again but being a perfectionist since I know it was already set up a pretty stiff setting I am going to back off the preload and emulator just a touch since 75% of my riding is cruising. I will accept the ride I get after that. Nice to find critical thinker here.