W/P forks - Travel/Bottoming?

[Douglas]

I always put a zip tie on one of my fork legs to gage how much of the available travel I'm using when I'm evaluating my suspension. No matter what valving, spring rate, or oil height I use in my W/P forks, I always have about 1 1/2" left at the bottom of the stroke. I have a 2001 400 EXC with SXS internals, a 2001 300 EXC with stock internals, and a 2001 YZ 250 F - stock. We ride in an area with very deep whoops, and verticle hills with "V" bottoms, so I know I'm using the travel. I would tell you I favor a fairly "plush" setup. MY YZ (and my buddies CR's and YZ's) always finish up with around 1/2" left showing at the end of the day. The KTM evidently has a very agressive anti bottom system, you can feel it when collapsing your forks the last couple of inches when setting the oil height. It would be nice to use the other inch of the available travel. Any solutions? (Example: 300 EXC, 5 wt. oil, 140mm oil height, .42 springs, stock valving, stock preload - Senior "A" rider) It is the same on my buddies KTM as well.

 

[marcusgunby]

You can go lower oil level than KTM reccomends on the Wps-try 155mm

 

[Douglas]

Marcus....

I tried 150mm and saw no difference.......tends to make the forks dive. I was actually wanting to raise the level to limit the "dive". Are you confident you're using all of the available travel in your forks? I would be interested in hearing other riders observations.....

 

[marcusgunby]

I am on my CR;) On the 2000 KTM 125sx i ended up with a very soft base valve setting(2*24.1)and 155mm airgap using 0.40 spring for my 170lb.Maybe your high speed comp could be softer as well?

 

[Jeremy Wilkey]

Douglas,
You may wish to give the oil lock a more gradual progression by drilling a very small relief at say some point into the cone..

Regards,
Jer

 

[Douglas]

Thanks Jeremy......I was going to start looking at those parts tomorrow.....I appreciate the hint. I'll post my results......

Thanks, Doug