Marzocchi setup help - 08' EC250

nick790

nick790

New member
Two tight woodland events has left me wanting a little more comfort from my EC's suspension, the bike handles great and goes wherever I point it, but it's a little harsh over small woops/rutted woodland, and also the front is quite unstable over bumps at speed. Looking for the first 2-3" to be a little softer before I get into the harder part on the fork? Could this be achieved by increesing the air gap or will that move the problem somewhere else?

I go about 200lb in full gear, the rear sag is correct. I asume the springs are standard. The back seams fine, but after alot of adjustmens at the weekend, I think I've run out of adjustment?
 
Last edited:
woops sorry that's for the 05 marzocchi's.

I would still look at increasing air gap but the 130-140mm height may not be correct for your (sachs?) forks. You could look what it is now and increase it though as long as the sachs are an open oil bath type fork - not sealed cartrige like the Kayaba's.

For referance the original oil height was 90mm on the marzocchi's and a move to 130-140mm gives a plusher ride.
 
I think 130 - 140mm is too much for the Zokes. I'm running 110mm with 0.46 springs and I previously ran 120mm with 0.48. But there is a lot of personal preference involved. However as stay_upright may have springs that are too heavy for him that may be why he can run a big air gap.
 
As posted on another thread.

The factory guys told me to leave the preload alone. What they told me is to remove the bottom shim stack from each fork. Take the nut off and remove ONE of the three large shims from the stack. Keep the shim handy because you might want to put it back in once the forks have broken in. They claim it takes 20 to 30 hours before the forks fully break in (Sacks). Also you need to take out the top space an mill 4mm off of it and mill a little out of the shoulder of the cap. This gets the fork to settle down into its stroke alitte bit. To turn the preload adjuster (if you must) Just find a nut that is the correct size. I would contact Mark at GoFasters. They should have a video of all of this.

Brian
 
Ok, so these are my idears so far, please advise as you see fit.

1, increes oil air gap, I'll go quite low at first and top it up to get the right feel.
2, replace fork oil, the bikes about 16 months old. The manual says SWA 5-7.5? what should I use?
3, Check lower fork clamp bolts, how tight? any thred lock?

Now we get to the trickier part, after reading through some threds, i was thinking of making some shim stack adjustment, can anyone advise me on exactly what I should and should not touch? I unterstand the the forks may not have enough rebound adjustment? and I read you can remove a bleed shim to speed this up? Can anyone advise?

Should I look at the comp stack at all?

Thank for the help, just like to add the only time I've ever been inside the fork are for standard sevice resons, this is why I'm keen to get as much info as possible, not that I'm worried about doing the work, infact I find the whole subject quite intresting:) .
 
I have, but I'm a bit of a novis at this so I thought I'd ask some questions first to see what people recomend.
 
nick790 said:
I have, but I'm a bit of a novis at this so I thought I'd ask some questions first to see what people recomend.
Click to expand...

How heavy are you?
You should be able to get a decent setup without re-valving but that's coming from someone of 108Kg (250 lb). Could be a different story if you're half that.

I run slightly lower rate springs (0.45) than recommended for my weight & lower compression damping on the clickers but with standard air gap & Putoline 7.5 oil. This seems to work quite well for me. Previously I ran 0.48 springs which were too hard, possibly mimicking your situation, I went to 120mm air gap and compression wound completely off and it was still a tad too hard. My (limited) experience with bikes has been that you really must find the correct spring rates for you before anything else and it makes an enormous difference. Seems to apply to road bikes too. Riding style comes into it too. I think I tend to ride the back too much and skim the front which is maybe why I need light fork springs. Probably tied into my size at 6'3" I end up pushing myself too far back on the seat.
 
I'm about 200lb in full gear, dont know what that is in Kg?

I'm also quite tall and ride the back wheel a fair bit, I'm coming off a 450 4stroke and obviously the extra waight made the suspension work a little easyer. I just dont seem to be getting the full travel of the fork. I dont think it's to hard overall, just too hard/harsh at the top on it's travel.

The other thing is the rebound seems to be very fast, or maybe thats just the way it seems, but if I incress the rebound damping it does'nt seem to make much difference. Saying that would I notice it staticly by pushing the front forks? but I also could'nt notice much difference when riding.

I think incressing the air gap will help alot, but whils I'm in there I could try some other things as well? Obviously I can alway return things to standard if I dont like it.
 
I woudl try increasing the air gap first then adjust the compression shims. (because changing the air gap is very easy)

Unless changing oil is a known, good mod specifically for the sachs forks (which i doubt) do not change the oil viscosity. The same oil controls compression and rebound so a lighter oil will reduce compression but also rebound. The Marzocchis have an issue where too little rebound feels like too much compression - the sachs may be similar so would not advise an oil change, you will not know what's wrong and nothing will be stock anymore.

I adjusted my compression shim stack by I would guess making it 50% more flexible and the results were brilliant (all be it with possibly wrong springs) I was looking for better performance in areas you mention.

Since I don't know what the stock compression shim stack is for the Sachs I can't really suggest one - removing one of the shims will help but may not have enough effect depending on how many shims are there to start with?
 
stay_upright said:
I woudl try increasing the air gap first then adjust the compression shims. (because changing the air gap is very easy)

Unless changing oil is a known, good mod specifically for the sachs forks (which i doubt) do not change the oil viscosity. The same oil controls compression and rebound so a lighter oil will reduce compression but also rebound. The Marzocchis have an issue where too little rebound feels like too much compression - the sachs may be similar so would not advise an oil change, you will not know what's wrong and nothing will be stock anymore.

I adjusted my compression shim stack by I would guess making it 50% more flexible and the results were brilliant (all be it with possibly wrong springs) I was looking for better performance in areas you mention.

Since I don't know what the stock compression shim stack is for the Sachs I can't really suggest one - removing one of the shims will help but may not have enough effect depending on how many shims are there to start with?
Click to expand...

Thanks, have you changer shim stacks before? if so where did you start?
 
I've changed compression and rebound shims on this 05 ec300 and compression stacks on a 99 KTM200 with conventional marzocchi's.

Basically take your forks to bits - there are some excellent you tube videos on this you will need to make a bit of a tool up to hold one part of the innards while you unscrwe another part - it's not too difficult to do once you can see what you want to do.

Once you can look at the shim stacks of your fork understand where the oil goes when your forks hit a bump so then you will see how the shim stacks work. Next step is to make the stack softer, my approach has always been to make the compression very soft and then if I need to stiffen it up again. The reason for this is it would help me understand the effect of the changes but in both cases I never needed to stiffen up the shim stacks again.

My stock base (compression) stack was
21
11
19
17
11
16
15
14
13

And I changed to
21
11
11
19
12
13 shims after this do not add to the stiffness of teh stack really I just stored them here you could almost ignore them.
14
15
16
17

This stack is much much softer. - if you wanted to use something as soft as this is upto you and depends on what you're looking for and your speed/weight etc. ...
 
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