Diving into the Sachs 48mm forks - wish me luck?

[Jakobi]

There are definitely so many different ways to approach the same problem Nath. Glad your progression is still moving in the right direction. I personally prefer a firmer feeling fork than super plush. I understand exactly what you mean about feeling the trail as the TTX are very much like this. They aren't plush, but they don't do anything strange at all. They just keep working. The Marz CC 48s in comparison feel much plusher, and even feel like they wallow a bit on downhills, but they don't have the same kind of feedback the TTX do. Then again, they're a couple rates softer on the spring.

Same goes for the shock. Running the new 888 with 5.2 rate spring and the valving seems alright. Kicks a bit on the HSC, but not too harsh. Went to a 5.4 rate spring and it rode harsh and deflected off everything. Back to 5.2 and pretty good again. With the TTX started at 5.4, had harshness, tried valving, went heavier on the spring to a 5.6, and eventually with a bigger spring and lighter valving found absolute magic.

I should really have a go at sorting out the Sachs carts I have here, even if its just in the name of learning.

 

[n_green]

Success

Wow. Thats all I have to say in relation to these forks now. Using the below stack these forks are bloody amazing. I won't go out and say the best in the world, but without a doubt the best I've ridden.

100k's of Zig Zag terrain covered today, majority single with some high speed twin trail thrown in mid way through. The forks are now super plush, I could count on one hand the amount of times I felt a harsh spike in the forks, and when I did, it was caused by the shock. Even on repeated impacts like hill climbs with baby head sized rocks and rock ledges with square edges they remained plush and compliant and then easily soaked up the bigger hit with no harshness or deflection at all.

They sit up nice and high in the stroke, but move nice and quick when required. Square edges, roots, angled fallen trees, basketball sized rocks, I hit it all today from 1st gear crawling up to 3rd gear 3/4 throttle. They do nothing unpredictable at all. I had zero deflection from the front end today. Even the big hits were soaked up nicely as were the drainage hump jumps on the twin trails.

Plenty of sandy corners and loose rock/solid rock on the track and there is no pushing anymore so it looks like the LS rebound is fixed. I left the clickers alone all day, think the comp is about halfway out and so is the rebound. I was flying downhills today (well for my ability anyway )the forks gave me that much confidence. HS rebound is sorted as well, no more pogoing at all.

I really have no complaints to make about the way the fork performed today, which is weird, they're Sachs forks, shouldn't I complain about them?

The only thing that happened which I didn't like too much is at the start of the day on a high speed (4th and 5th gear 3/4 + throttle) fire/twin trail with the usual potholes etc I could feel the bike rocking back and forth like a boat after a hit, the front and rear weren't working together and when it did this I got a small amount of headshake. I later added 2 clicks of rebound to the shock and took off 2 clicks of HSC on the shock (it was kicking me a bit on logs and square edges) and this seems to have fixed it.

The other thing it was doing is on very steep downhills with minimal grip under heavy braking the front kept wanting to push out, it would brake fine, compress the forks a little, then a nice and firm bite, but instead of staying there it would start pushing back, which would cause the front to lock. I don't know if this is a flaw with the forks, I don't think it is as they only ever pushed like this on downhills.

I'm thinking it may be the rear shock, the forks really showed that up today as being a bit firmer then them. I wonder if the shock being that bit too firm in the LSC makes it sit up a bit higher and push the forks forward?

In any case it didn't happen enough to warrant me playing with the clickers etc so it was a bloody good day of just enjoying suspension that works.

See the stack below. I'm calling this a success.


BV:
23.1
14.1
23.1 (3)
20.1
18.1
16.1
14.1
12.3

MV:
12.1
24.1 (3)
22.1
20.1
18.1
16.1
11.2

Float = 0.5mm

Rebound:
23.1 (5)
16.1
23.1 (1)
22.1
20 .1
18 .1 (2)
16 .1 (2)
12 .15 (2)
10 .3

2 x 1.2mm bleed holes in piston - closed using JB weld then a 1.5mm bleed hole drilled in.

I run .50 springs, approx 6mm of preload.
Air gap is 120mm using Motorex 5wt oil.

 

[gasgasmick]

nice work on forks mate..its nice to hear you can actually gets these sachs to respond well !

 

[Ryan218]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread, thanks for documenting it!