That's true about measuring oil in CC's...I've always used oil level since the forks are off the bike in a bench vise anyway. Just two different ways to do the same thing.

Your stiffer spring and thicker oil should be a vast improvement over stock, especially after setting sag and dialing in compression/rebound settings...lots of trial and error.

 

I just started to look into all this again, since I was bashed pretty good on other forums when I considered this idea (rightly so). I think part of the reason it worked better for me is because of where I live (South, Fl). Fork oil viscosity is rated at 40c and 100c. It seems 40c viscosity is used to determine the weight because at higher temperatures, there are all types of disparities between these oils. http://www.peterverdonedesigns.com/f...ion%20oils.pdf

The Viscosity of Honda 10W SS8 @ 100c is 7.38, and 35.48 @ 40c. Maxima 15W is 8.48 @ 100c, and 46.00 @ 40c. To give you an idea, that's 30% more @ 40c, and 15% more @ 100c. A change from 10w to 15w should mean 50% more viscosity, and in some cases this is the case. But, ss8 is a little higher up on viscosity compared to other 10w oils, and Maximia 15W is towards the bottom of the 15W oils.

My whole point about the location thing is that I've only run this setup during the summer (in sofla), and it just feels a tiny bit stiff...maybe as the weather cools down (although it usually doesn't cool off very much), the forks will be much stiffer.

Now when I went from a .68 spring to a .95, I increased the stiffness by 40%. Being that my oil viscosity increased by 30% at around 100F, would it be safe to say that my dampening increased by that amount (assuming the change is linear)? Effectively leaving me a little short of the amount of rebound dampening that I wanted and a whole lot more compression dampening than I wanted (which is also why I turned up the rebound a bit and turned the compression down a whole lot). Now I heard that when fork oil is hot, it reacts much more quickly and obviously thins out...is it possible that this is why I have not felt any of the high speed dampening issues I have heard so much about? Is it also possible that as the temperature drops, I begin to feel drastic changes in the front? Time will tell I suppose.

Please correct me if I am off base on any of this ****, I'm just trying to make sense of it.

 

Found some info on another site which showed which adjustments were for rebound and compression. Returned settings to factory and increased both the rebound and compression by 1/4 turn. Will ride around a couple of days and report back.

Btw, seals are in good condition, no indication of leakage.

 

Keep in mind that I've had the bike for about a month and picked it up with 12K miles on the odo.....So I have no idea what the previous owner did or did not do.

I reset the fork settings back to factory which helped slightly with the bottoming problem. I then increased both the compression and rebound settings 1/4 turn (stiffer) which produced a significant improvement. No more bottoming out of the forks and not too stiff over rough roads. At this point I think I'll leave things alone until I learn more. Thanks again for all the info which I'm sure will be useful in the future.

 

Cool beans! Good plan, incremental changes will definetly make it easier to
find the sweet spot. Wish I'd thought to mention it myself. Sounds like
you're getting it sorted out.

Ern

 

So much to learn, so much fun doing so.