George_Pap wrote:Hello all, I would like to ask what is the minimum "safe" travel that I have to maintain in my front forks without the fear of bottoming? I mean what the minimum height distance between lets say fork seals and lower triple tee ( yoke )
By default it was set to 180mm but I want to lower the front to 120mm
I have WP springs installed and SAE15 fork oil. Do you think its gonna be dangerous in sudden braking under load?
Thank you
This is quite a loaded question. From my racing days this first things to set correctly, were your suspension and get a the best set of tyres you can afford. What exactly are you trying to achieve ?
The manual says SAE5 fork oil, 410cc of oil in each leg (which sounds like a lot to me) and 135 mm of travel.
So your SAE 15 will make the forks a little stiffer, if you want to lower the front end you should NOT change the distance between the lower tripple clamp and the seals. But raise the forks up through the top tripple clamp. But 60mm you are suggesting is quite extreme and it will severely change the geometry of the bike and the (handling) the bike will oversteer and turn into corners much quicker, even dangerously so. Usually if you lower the front end you have to lower the back as well
Check your oil levels are exactly the same in each fork. take the weight off the front wheel, remove the fork caps. make a dipstick to check levels
Put a zip tie around the fork stanchion push it down the fork to the seal, go for a ride try some hard braking. The zip tie movement will tell you how much travel you are using.
Push the forks trough the top tripple clamp at small increments 5 - 10mm (max) test ride, feel the difference. Try another 5mm etc
Take care when experimenting. You can make your bike very unstable.