[SK6]

So from What I'm reading, I would be better served with changing my fork to TPC as opposed to the SPV Evolve. This is getting a bit out of my scope of knowledge, so any info would be great as to help me understand the inherent differences along with an idea as to how to change them out.

I do have the manual, so simply personal thought s or notes would be awesome!

Thanks!

 

[vitox]

tpc has been around since 1998 and has been shamelessly copied by manitous closest competitor (pure damping / motion control). spv evolve lasted what 1 season or 2?

 

[OGRipper]

Not sure what fork it's for, but it pretty much doesn't matter: TPC. I owned a Minute with SPV and a Sherman with SPV Evolve and could never get either to feel good, just really bad small bump performance even at minimum settings.

 

[SK6]

yeah, I have the slider, and have been tooling around with it...Looks like a call to Answer products.

 

[kidwoo]

Anybody know if you can just break the spv thing and get it to not work?

Run it with no pressure etc?

 

[OGRipper]

Anybody know if you can just break the spv thing and get it to not work?

Run it with no pressure etc?

I ran mine with no pressure a couple times each, they ended with a weird clunking unless I put the minimum in. Never tried to break either of them but definitely thought about it...no experience with the slider...I considered getting the TPC dampers too but I sold the bike with the minute and picked up a pike air to replace the sherman on my heckler - loving it so far.

 

[Sjase]

I ran mine with no pressure a couple times each, they ended with a weird clunking unless I put the minimum in. Never tried to break either of them but definitely thought about it...no experience with the slider...I considered getting the TPC dampers too but I sold the bike with the minute and picked up a pike air to replace the sherman on my heckler - loving it so far.

On a standard spv fork you can't run without pressure in it. This damages the spv cartridge. It is possible though to have it modified so you can run it without any pressure in the SPV chamber, but why would you want that?

I only have experience with tpc and that's a really good and technologically advanced system.

 

[davep]

Kidwoo
when I had a dorado w/ spv, the official 'fix' at that time and the only solution that the manitou tech guys knew to make the fork work, was to take a very small ~3/32 drill bit and drill a bypass hole in the damper head. What you then end up with is esentially a ported damper system.

the good: fork felt great on small stuff
the bad: no more high speed damping either, the fork bottomed all the time.

In the end they took the fork back as they could not offer a solution that would get the fork working.

 

[Jm_]

Well, SPV was kind of a bust, especially for those of us that want our suspension to work as well as possible. Any spv pressure would create some level of a "threshold", which means bumps had to be a certain force to "blow off" the threshold. This creates harshness in the travel. An SPV shock/fork IS going to compramise the performance of the suspension to some extent.

TPC+ on the other hand was a great idea, the intial floating piston gave you very soft travel, and then the shimmed compression piston would take over after a little bit of travel and bring in a little bit heavier compression. These forks had a very good feel to them and the system worked pretty well. The one thing that manitou has always had problems with though is progressiveness, they usually just put in elastomers in the bottoms of the forks, so the plastic rods and parts would just slam into them. The other part that was problamatic was the lack of an oil-bath for the bushings and internals. This was addressed later, but they still never seemed as well lubricated as a marzocchi. TPC+ did a lot of things right though, but not comming out with a new product is seen as stagnation and customers will always flock to the latest and greatest. TPC+ or the new Pure Delight/Motion control damper? Well, TPC+ has been around forever, and customers want to try out the new stuff. Nevermind that there's many aspects of TPC+ in both of those systems.

The one thing that SPV has that TPC+ does not is progressiveness. This is an important adjustment for a fork IMO, but it's often overlooked.

Relatively inexpensive, well built (metal) and well lubricated TPC+ forks would have sold like hotcakes.

 

[SK6]

Well, SPV was kind of a bust, especially for those of us that want our suspension to work as well as possible. Any spv pressure would create some level of a "threshold", which means bumps had to be a certain force to "blow off" the threshold. This creates harshness in the travel. An SPV shock/fork IS going to compramise the performance of the suspension to some extent.

TPC+ on the other hand was a great idea, the intial floating piston gave you very soft travel, and then the shimmed compression piston would take over after a little bit of travel and bring in a little bit heavier compression. These forks had a very good feel to them and the system worked pretty well. The one thing that manitou has always had problems with though is progressiveness, they usually just put in elastomers in the bottoms of the forks, so the plastic rods and parts would just slam into them. The other part that was problamatic was the lack of an oil-bath for the bushings and internals. This was addressed later, but they still never seemed as well lubricated as a marzocchi. TPC+ did a lot of things right though, but not comming out with a new product is seen as stagnation and customers will always flock to the latest and greatest. TPC+ or the new Pure Delight/Motion control damper? Well, TPC+ has been around forever, and customers want to try out the new stuff. Nevermind that there's many aspects of TPC+ in both of those systems.

The one thing that SPV has that TPC+ does not is progressiveness. This is an important adjustment for a fork IMO, but it's often overlooked.

Relatively inexpensive, well built (metal) and well lubricated TPC+ forks would have sold like hotcakes.

great, thats exactly what I was looking for thanks. Now the question is can I contact Answer Products and purchase the TPC dampening system? Or should I wait and see how the SPV Evolve works out for me. I'm a big dude, 235 -240 (Not all fat BTW! ) Thoughts?

 

[OGRipper]

Relatively inexpensive, well built (metal) and well lubricated TPC+ forks would have sold like hotcakes.

Yeah, I would have lived with the need for frequent lube jobs if the damping performance was better. I probably could have swapped to TPC and been pleased. I really like the RA design, the hex axle, etc. Some people love them but it will be a while before I purchase another manitou.

 

[SprungShoulders]

I agree with JM. I own an '03 150mm Slider TPC+, and it's all-around a very nice ride, except when it really needs to ramp-up on something big (that I did something stupid on), when it will oftentimes bottom. Otherwise, it's smooth, stiff (for someone my size), and has been taken only minimal maintenance to maintain.

A quality TPC+ system with a usable bottoming control mechanism would be awesome. IMHO Manitou got off on a messy, problematic tangent with SPV, and dropped the ball on taking TPC+ to the next level.

 

[davep]

There is in fact some adjustment to the progression of all tpc+ forks that i have taken apart.

On the outside the only adjustment is the compression knob and this opens and closes a needle valve bypas for the second, more dampened stage of the fork. It does not effect the first portion of the travel. Now if you pull the comp shaft out of the fork you will see the two piston heads, one fixed and one floating. Upon closer inspection, there is a very small circlip that determines the static position of the floating head. There are one or two other groves there to put the clip into to move the floating piston head and cause the second stage damping to kick in earlier in the travel of the fork. If you are having bottoming problems with a tpc+ fork with the correct spring, this is a simple (5 min) solution at no cost.

Of course you could also have the shim stack altered... but I do not know that much about the different shim stack configurations to do that.

 

[Spokompton]

tpc has been around since 1998 and has been shamelessly copied by manitous closest competitor (pure damping / motion control). spv evolve lasted what 1 season or 2?

correction, motion control is vastly different from any of the other dampers.

 

[Jm_]

correction, motion control is vastly different from any of the other dampers.

Not the bottom part of it, the bottom part of it has a piston, like TPC and Pure did.

 

[fiddy_ryder]

Upon closer inspection, there is a very small circlip that determines the static position of the floating head. There are one or two other groves there to put the clip into to move the floating piston head and cause the second stage damping to kick in earlier in the travel of the fork. If you are having bottoming problems with a tpc+ fork with the correct spring, this is a simple (5 min) solution at no cost.

.

so moving the clip which way does what?

 

[davep]

so moving the clip which way does what?

Every one that i have seen comes stock with the clip installed at the very end of the shaft so the the pistons are as far apart as possible. This set up has the second stage the farthest into the travel. So you want to move the pistons closer together as it is when they touch that the second stage kicks in. The floating piston has a very light spring to keep it extended...slide the piston down a little compressing the spring, then move the circlip to one of the positions to keep the piston at the closer position.

 

[bomberboy11]

Hscv.

 

[SK6]

Well, per Answer Products, here is their e-mail response. Less then 24 hours for a reply BTW.

Ralph, you could have your local bike shop call in to order the parts to do the switch to TPC.

Now for the bad news. The inner legs are different on the inside. You could wide up with a fork that has very little rebound speed control.

 

[fiddy_ryder]

Every one that i have seen comes stock with the clip installed at the very end of the shaft so the the pistons are as far apart as possible. This set up has the second stage the farthest into the travel. So you want to move the pistons closer together as it is when they touch that the second stage kicks in. The floating piston has a very light spring to keep it extended...slide the piston down a little compressing the spring, then move the circlip to one of the positions to keep the piston at the closer position.

so this will basically have the fork kick into the second stage a bit sooner, will this help to creat more progression and possibly help to resist pre-mature bottoming?

 

[Nagaredama]

Well, per Answer Products, here is their e-mail response. Less then 24 hours for a reply BTW.

Ralph, you could have your local bike shop call in to order the parts to do the switch to TPC.

Now for the bad news. The inner legs are different on the inside. You could wide up with a fork that has very little rebound speed control.

Funny I sent Manitou an email yesterday asking about swapping my SPV for TPC+ on my Sherman Breakout +. Got a call from them today saying the same thing. Going from SPV to TPC+ could result in little to no rebound do to the honing of the legs. The TPC wouldn't be able to make a good seal allowing oil leak pretty much rendering the fork useless. He did say it works on some forks but it isn't guaranteed.

I also have a 05 Nixon Elite. The TPC+ systems for those should be ready around March and will cost between $80-$100 retail.

 

[davep]

so this will basically have the fork kick into the second stage a bit sooner, will this help to creat more progression and possibly help to resist pre-mature bottoming?

That has been my experience exactly!

 

[fiddy_ryder]

That has been my experience exactly!

excellent! im going to crack my fork open and give it a go. ill report back by the weekend

 

[SK6]

excellent! im going to crack my fork open and give it a go. ill report back by the weekend

Take pics. Please.

 

[fiddy_ryder]

ok here it is, the clip that was discussed. Im going to go ahead and move it up to the other groove. I wont have any real ride reports until the weekend, but im going to go pedal a bit tonight and there are a few avg drops around town that should be able to at least give me an idea if theres a change. I have used close to the full 6" on since they are to flat, so maybe the zip tie travel test will give some type of feedback whether or not it has changed.

1st pic is the lower part of tpc extended with clip in the bottom position.

2nd pic is the bottom piston pulled back to expose the 2nd position.

 

[davep]

hey fiddy-

is that pic how the fork came? It has been a while since i have had one of those apart but i remember the piston being all the way down against the allen screw at the end in stock form or maybe i just pulled the circlip off altogether to see what it would doand ended up with a very linear feel. As you can see that fork is super simple (that is a good thing). The changes will not be huge but will be noticable on the big full travel hits... just play around with the adjustments and you will get it. Remember that the external rebound knob adjusts the damping for the second (end stroke) damping almost exclusively. Good luck!

 

[fiddy_ryder]

i got the fork used, so maybe it had been adjusted previously. But I did look closely to see if the clip would fit all the way against the allen screw. It didnt look like the clip would fit in there. maybe if you backed out the screw and installed the clip and tightened, but def not with the screw tightened all the way.

 

[vitox]

so moving the clip which way does what?

moving the two valves closer to each other, or rather, the bottom, floating one, upwards, makes the damping increase occur earlier in the stroke.

 

[vitox]

correction, motion control is vastly different from any of the other dampers.

cmon

they are both in essence the same, twin opposing independent pistons, the rebound end of things is pretty much identical, and the compression piston is fixed to the upper end of the stanchion on all the designs, damping occurs when oil is displaced by the entry of the rebound shaft to the oil chamber (stanchion in tpc and mc, and a separate tube in the pure system). whats more the lockout mechanism is veeery similar. the valve might be a bit different but the functional principle is the same.

anyway its a great system and mr. gonzalez should be proud of it.

 

[SK6]

well, before diving into the internals, I have the volume adjuster all the way out, and am going to run 40psi and see how that works.

what is nice however, if I go trail riding with my wife or some friends, I can always increase the pressure...

 

[SK6]

BTW, how did it work out?

I had another thought. I'm a big dude, so I put the heavier spring in the fork. Since it is so stiff, I'm wondering if putting the regular spring back in would be a better idea, and if I bottom it out, I could increase the air.

Thoughts?

 

[IronhorseCT]

Would not go any lower than yellow for a guy like you. I was able to ride it with yellow, but it did bottom once and a while. But I hated using the volume aduster because it made the beginning of the stroke really choppy also. If I kept it, I would have upped the spring and tried that.

My $.02

 

[SK6]

The real funny thing is though, that the fork seems to be real active. And when I did a few 3 ft drops, it seemed to do ok. Again, that was an urban environment. We’ll just have to ride it and let it break in a bit.

My breakout was a bit stiff when I got it, but when she broke in, she was real plush. So we’ll see.

 

[fiddy_ryder]

no real ride time yet,, working too much. maybe tonight ill get some drops and stair gaps to see how the travel ramps up. pushing on the fork sitting in my apartment, it feels a bit stiffer towards the bottom. but that may all just be mental.

 

[fiddy_ryder]

bump for a ride report:

personally, it does feel stiffer towards the end of teh stroke. I rode the trail that i usually do and i used to use all 6" of travel cuz im a hack measured the ol zip tie last night and was just over 5". And I over shot a few of the jumps big time getting almost no tranny at all. So in my eyes, bumping the clip has firmed it up. I could probably jump to xfirm spring kit, but I think this is sufficient for now.

if your thinking about it, just do it, took less than 10 mins.

 

[wingman24]

wow, crap vs crap, how do you answer something like that, its like voteing for the US pres.