so after going through stock forks, bitchin baggers 1" drop kit, HD low profile fork kit, and the progressive mono tubes, i am not at the race tech fork kit with the gold emulators.

so far i like them, i like the adjustability of the system, i dont like that to adjust them you have to pull the forks off to pull the emulator to make an adjustment.

i have had the forks off about 3 times now tuning the suspension.

a little advice, whatever the directions say for the preload spacer, forget about it. youll need more preload.

im using the 64# spring on the emulator with 4 turns on the adjuster. i think i may need to back it off some thinking 1/2 to a full turn.

its a little stiff over sharp bumps

and i may add another 1/8 - 1/4 of preload.


my main complaint about all the other setups (aside from the hd profile kit) was the front would wallow in corners. which is a result of not enough preload i found out. i had the mono tubes maxed out on preload and it still wallowed in the corners. hell it would even wallow on the highway over some bumps, and would get crazy on tar strips.

the HD profile kit isnt a bad kit, but it was so super stiff it was unbearable. i contribute this to the only way to increase or decrease dampening is to use heavier or lighter weight oil. also the progressive spring doesnt help. i could actually feel the suspension get past the soft spring rate into the heavier spring rate which gave an unpredictable feeling in corners.

the race tech kits linear spring rate, that is matched to my weight, along with the adjustable emulator does a pretty good job of keeping the tire planted and making cornering the bike more predictable and more pleasant.

again though doing the adjustments is time consuming and takes patience to get it right, but in the end i should be satisfied for the short term. in the end ill be picking up the traxxion dynamics kit probably over the winter.


so for the money and the products out there in that price range, i feel the race tech kit is your best bet for a controllable ride that will be confidence inspiring in the corners.

 

Hi Hoblick , glad it's working out but I think part of the problems you have had may be because you are running a 21" front tire , as you know I just put the Ohlins on my rear and was looking to upgrade the front , I had the money in hand and talked to Max (owner) at Traxxion several times , the Goldwingers do love the Traxxion but I wanted feedback from Harley riders , Max suggested I go to cvoharley.com which I did , I found maybe 40 guys who bought them , all but 4 went from stock to Traxxion and said the $1200 investment was well worth it , 4 went from stock to Progressive monotubes to Traxxion , all 4 said if stock front end is a zero for reference point monotubes for $300 get you to about a 7 , Traxxion for $1200 get you to a 9 , they all said for the money monotubes were the best value hands down , I then talked to kingkingking on this forum who recently did ohlins/monotubes , he said basically the same thing , I decided after this to try the monotubes and wait and see what else comes available to us , so far for me this has been a great improvement , my Ohlins is perfect and the monotubes have been great , cornering , tracking , everything has improved , Max is buying a shop Harley and putting the Traxxion in them you can demo , I will probably ride to Atlanta and check them out , but I am pretty damn happy with the monotubes , good luck hope it all works out for you

 

A friend has emulators and RaceTech springs in his Sportster, which he had built by a local suspension specialist (he took the forks leg off his bike and handed them over for the surgery). The benefit of doing it that way is the specialist knows how to tune and match the components, so we the customer don't have to do things by trial and error.

I am about to do the same for my SuperLow, with the springs being matched to my weight, as he finds his bike is transformed. For my Glide forks I am waiting for Howard's Ohlins cartridges!

 

like i said i think in the end ill be doing the traxxion kit.

ill most likely send my forks to 35motorsports for rueben frankenfield to do his magic, he is a traxxion dealer, and has done some work on my old track bike and does alot of work for some buddies of mine who still ride track

 

For my weight Racetech recommended a 1.0 spring. Not sure how that differs from yours.

I'm installing mine with Ricor Intiminators (which I already have). To me the stock HD springs are way too soft.

 

Please post an update on your impressions of the Initminators.

TIA

 

The stock springs are too soft, or too hard depending on what point in the travel you are talking about. You will be real happy with the Racetech linear wound springs and the Intiminators. I have tweaked mine about 5 times now and got them set up pretty nice. Check to see what shim configuration you are running with your intiminators, they are set up for stock springs, I'm running 3X .015 shims with my 1.0kg springs and so far they are working very well.

 

i put the ohlins to the test last weekend, they did great in the corners. but still leaving my wanting more. as stated before, this was a temporary fix till winter when i can have the bike down for more than a day. I have called traxxion dynamics, and ill be sending my forks out to get there ak20 kit installed. i should be pleased as punch with those catridges