[drastic.]

updates?

itll be another week or 2..still letting my fractured wrist and broken pinky heal.
rode for the first time today on some light xc, and the wrist is still a tad sensitive so ima take it easy.

still waiting for correct fork seals to arrive as well.
initial testing will be with just the wiper seal and damper mod, on most likely the firm spring (170lb geared). then ill play w/ the shimstack and see the results of that before deciding on if ill need to drop it a spring rate or not.

sry for tthe lack of updates!

 

[drastic.]

i need a new headset crown race, so i'm waiting on a new one to arrive. hopefully wed.

i have a question... w/ my fork assembled, but w/o the upper and lower crowns on, the right leg (damper side) sucks down about 1/2" into the lowers after you fully extend the leg. almost as if there is a vacuum inside.

is this normal, and if not what would be the cause of it?

was just going to install the fork and make sure the legs were fully extended before tightening the crowns, but i'm curious as to if that's normal or not.

 

[tacubaya]

I'd personally avoid using Enduro seals. The seals themselves are too harsh on the anodizing on the stanchions themselves since they are made up of more plastic rather than rubber compared to (Traditional Seals). Not only that the tolerances are a lot tighter and less forgiving since there is theoretically 1 seal instead of both oil and dust seals. Ive seen too many worn out stanchions because of this. Stock RS seals work 100%. Just make sure you lube/ clean the seals and you'll be a happy camper

 

[drastic.]

rode today.

she sits at about 15% sag w/ no preload spacers, on a firm spring (180-200lb range). i'm about 155lb.

i didnt necessarily run it particularly hard today because it's my first day back from 2 hand injuries, but i'm thinking i may need to drop down to a medium rated spring..

the fork is plush as can be, even though the the firm spring is in there. stictionless and responsive. it's amazing. i made sure to fill the void where there would be the oil seals, with a ****ton of slick honey.


ill need to pull the compression damper off and give it a going over. it's pretty much rendered useless right now. doesn't matter if i keep the clickers completely open, or closed...it feels the same. ill just make sure everything is working as it should. anyway, not a big deal if not, as i plan on either dropping an avy cart in eventually, or upgrading the internals to a r2c2.


oil height have any affect on damping? my oil height is about 20mm higher than spec recommendation, and wonder if i drop it to the recommended height if ill cut some of the progressive ramping out deeper in the stroke?

 

[drastic.]

dropped the 20ml out of the bike. the harsh progressiveness in the last 3" of the stroke was decreased about 80%.

now only the last inch feels like its an abrupt harsh hit, the rest of the stroke feels like butter. i might either drop the oil height very slightly, more. or i will drop the largest shim out of the shimstack and see if theres a difference in that.

the compression knob is still rendered useless. its ok anyways for the time being because aside from the last inch of the stroke, the fork runs well. itll be getting a WC air spring and either the TEAM/WC damping cart, or an avy cart in the future (of which, any recommendations on which cart i should put in?)


running only wiper seals, the oil seeps out the fork a decent bit. it doesnt bother me much, as i clean my forks often, but next time around, ill prolly put the oil seals in so i dont need to worry about oil level/contamination.

 

[drastic.]

i have two red springs, no worries there. weigh 170lbs no gear, i have 20% sag up front with the firm spring and like 2 clicks of LSC and 4 of HSC.

the firm feels really stiff, but i rode it at northstar last weekend and it did pretty well. you have to work harder to make it feel good, but it let me roll through the rocky stuff easier.

ive just been riding northstar.. when that closes, i'll be at carlmont for the wniter.

17% sag here. love the firm for free riding, but for some of the rockier dh, im getting tossed a lil more than i like.

still have that spare red spring? pm'd.

 

[staike]

i have a question... w/ my fork assembled, but w/o the upper and lower crowns on, the right leg (damper side) sucks down about 1/2" into the lowers after you fully extend the leg. almost as if there is a vacuum inside.

is this normal, and if not what would be the cause of it?

was just going to install the fork and make sure the legs were fully extended before tightening the crowns, but i'm curious as to if that's normal or not.

Normal. You have probably screwed the top cap in with the leg slightly compressed. On my own fork I'm running 50 % negative air to make it more linear. What I mean by that is that I compress the stanchion 100 mm into the lowers and then tighten up the topcap.

 

[SacredYeti]

i stopped right there.. get the firm spring. you want a stiffer fork (compared to your rear) when you are doing steep stuff. plus at 190, if you have any speed at all the medium spring will be way too soft.

gotta run the right spring before you fine tune it with the damper.

^^^THIS

I went with the "Firm" spring for the Boxxer (2008 RC) and it turned the forks into gold. When your forks "feel" stiff but are diving in corners, you want a stiffer spring. Running a spring too soft will cause the fork to ride in the "active" area of the valving, giving you a pretty harsh ride and not holding your forks up in their stroke. Now with a stiffer spring, the forks have an easier time staying up and therefore gives you a much more consistent/smoother feeling when riding because the valving is able to work throughout the entire range of motion as opposed to being "stuck in the middle".

You weight about 15 pounds less than me, give it a shot.

 

[tacubaya]

Damping depends on the velocity of the shaft, not on the position.

 

[max.broman]

145 with gear on, what weight spring should I ride, I'm sorta fast, but now WC fast.

 

[NY_Star]

I was messing with mine. Then I bought an avalanche cartage and that fix all the issues.

 

[DMdh]

drastic, how does it feel the damper with the new hole??
Does it cause bottoming out very easily or makes the fork feel very soft??
I´m 160 lbs with gear on and I´m currently using yellow spring and a modified shimstack to gain more damping, but I´m thinking on movin to the red spring and opening the hole.....
what to you think?

 

[drastic.]

drilling an extra hole rendered my damper useless. dont do it. doesnt matter if the compression is completely closed, or all the way open, it doesnt change.


ill be epoxy'ing the hole shut soon, and will be looking to remove the largest shim in the damper. i would've already, but ive been just trying to get out and ride.

also, removing the oil seals make the fork weep Way too much. i take care of my bike, and clean my fork after every ride, but even then, it's blowing out too much oil in a single session.



anyway. save your money, and buy the team cart, or an avy cart. that was/is my plan from the get-go, just figured id try some band-aid things to make the fork perform better.


play with oil weight. 10ml changes at a time.

i went from the firm spring at 17% sag to the soft spring w/ 3 preload spacers (if that makes any diff) at 28-30% sag. still iffy about it, as i dont like alot of sag. best i can do until i can source a medium spring though. last 1-2" ramps up stiffer pretty quickly still.

 

[drastic.]

I was messing with mine. Then I bought an avalanche cartage and that fix all the issues.

ill be doing the same thing. that or the team cart. not sure which'll retain its value better, not that it makes a difference..i got the fork for so cheap, i plan on just upgrading the damping carts over time as new ones come out instead of selling/replacing the fork.

how do you like the avy cart? care to give a lil review about it?

 

[JimLad]

Remember with the Mission Control damper you need the shimmed rebound assembly to match

 

[OffCamber]

Remember with the Mission Control damper you need the shimmed rebound assembly to match

What is a ballpark figure $$$ for this upgrade? I just got a bike with a 2010 Race on it.

 

[drastic.]

What is a ballpark figure $$$ for this upgrade? I just got a bike with a 2010 Race on it.

it's about 160 for each...the rebound, and the compression damper. so low 320, +/- 20$ or so.

 

[JimLad]

If you can't get a deal on the parts - go Avalanche

 

[drastic.]

so i've gotten about 10 rides in on the stock shimstack, w/ an extra oil port drilled.

i decided to fill in the hole. epoxy wouldnt exactly stick and was messy..so a few drops of super glue and 5min wait time, and she was good to go.

i removed the largest shim in the compression damper and left the others alone. so now when the compression adjuster is completely open, i can see through all 3 oiling holes, where w/ the shim in previously, you couldnt

my compression knob works now, so thats a plus already. already feels stiffer in the lower 3-4" just pushing the fork down im guessing from the lack of having extra oil flow. not much of a test, but its telling me im going to see a difference next time i pull her out.

ill get another 5-10 rides in w/ it like this, and see how it compares.

yea yea, im trying to polish a turd...the more i ride this fork, the more i realize the cart(s) suck. an avy will go in, in due time (xmas present maybe? ).

 

[Verskis]

I wouldn't call the Boxxer RC a turd.
In the summer I bought a bike with a Boxxer RC fork. I wasn't expecting very much of it, and even before actually buying the bike I thought that I will update it with Avalanche cartridge later on.
The fork was a pleasant surprise, I think it works quite well for a budget unit. I haven't felt any excessive harshness, but maybe it dives a bit too much.
It worked well enough that I started to think about keeping it stock, but having my mind set on the Avalanche cartridge earlier, I couldn't resist buying one. I ordered it yesterday, when it arrives I can comment on how much of a difference it makes.

 

[drastic.]

so w/ the extra oiling port filled, and the largest shim removed, i've had a good 10-12 rides put in.

much improved riding w/ this method over the oiling port method. and my compression damper works atleast.

it's smoother from the 1st inch to the last. more linear feeling, less mid stroke harshness, and plusher overall compared to the oiling hole.

still not overly impressed w/ the CR cart, but its about as good as itll get as such. avy cart still planned after xmas season.

 

[Synch]

any updates? how does the avalanche cart ride?

 

[Damien Turner]

Going to give this shim stack mod a try. I'm 220lb and getting 19% sag on the stock spring and pushing though the travel nicely but on bigger stuff the stock spring is not up to it for my weight. Going to move up to the blue firm spring but dont want to lose to much sag and the plushness. going to strip them down soon and see whats going on inside and service. Have ordered the RockShox Refresh Service Kit from TFtune.

 

[ThEGr33k]

OK this is something I have worked on with my 2010 Race.

The issue with these forks as people have seen is that you have one Compression dampening system, there is no low and high speed it is just one.

Now I have an idea on how this can be sorted relatively easily allowing for high and low speed compression independently.

These are currently theory as I need Shims to be able to properly test this.

So here goes.

The stock setup is that the compression dampener has bleed holes which in normal high/low speed setups would affect low speed only. The problem is that the oil in the Race/RC has to travel through a shim stack as well. This means that the fork is effectively double dampened and no matter the force the damping is the same (and because of the shim stack small bumps are locked out as it allows no oil movement).

So to make this compression setup dial force (high/low speed) I have 2 idea's.

First option is to make it so one of the holes bypass the shim stack. To do this you have to drill one of the holes under the shim bigger so the oil travelling through the hole doesn't have to go past the shim but can go around it (when you look under the shim stack you will see what I mean, stock all oil has to go through the holes then past shim stack. Once this is done the other 2 holes still have to go through the shims. I have this setup atm and it does indeed separate the high and low speeds. Trouble with this is that the only way to change the high speed is through changing the shim stack. The standard shim stack is really weak meaning that atm I don't have much HSD as I am having to try and get a hold of shims to fit. That being said it is VERY similar levels of HSD as stock as it is the stock shim stack...

The second idea is a carry on from the above. When the shim stack is off and you look at the holes which the oil travels through you can see that there are 3 holes which are not open to the bottom (they are sealed still). This idea is similar to the above. You drill out all 3 sealed holes through to the bottom like the stock ones (this will mean you will have 6 holes in the face of the compression damper, 3 stock 3 new. The original 3 holes like the first option need drilling so that the oil doesn't press past the shims. Make the sure 3 new holes do have to go past the shims though!!! You will need more shims to make the HSD harder to activate (as I said above the stock shim stack is too weak!).

So what do these mods do? Well they both make it so that you will have oil that flows separate to the shim stack which will be LSC circuit, and when the suspension piston speed increases oil will have to push past a shim stack as the pressure increases. This is how normal suspension works. In the first option the top adjuster still affects both LSC and HSC circuits and can still lock the fork when turned right up. In the second option the top adjuster only affects LSC and the only way to effect HSC is through changing the shim stack. Turning the compression all the way up on this setup will just make small bumps lock, high speed will still work!

Hope this helps. If I manage to get a hold of some more shims (anyone know a good place?) I will take pictures and post results. In theory these mods will make the system work almost the same as the R2C2 and WC forks!

 

[4130biker]

Three first-posts in a row?

Any rc vs avy comparisons?