Bikedude987
Member
First I'll preface saying that I don't want to take any business away from Nick of Stoltec Moto and highly recommend him if you are at all uncomfortable doing your own work. This modification will not get you to the same level as his work. but it is a significant improvement over stock, especially when paired with his linear fork springs. BUT, if you're DIY and capable, there is an easy way to vastly improve your forks with all stock valving components.
I posted this in a thread in Technical, but figured it should have it's own thread.
IF you're comfortable doing your forks and are willing to take apart the damper cartridge, Yamaha has left us all a nice easter egg in there.
Once you've got the compression piston out of the bottom of the damper cartridge, you'll see that the three compression ports are only about .025" holes. You can open these up (with a hand drill if careful, I didn't want to indicate them in on the mill...) to around .0625, maybe a little bigger. Even with the stock shim stack this makes a monumental difference.
FYI, when I did mine I also put in .80 springs from Nick and 5w oil, forget the brand...
Pictures are of the components in order, the stock piston, then the modified piston.
I posted this in a thread in Technical, but figured it should have it's own thread.
IF you're comfortable doing your forks and are willing to take apart the damper cartridge, Yamaha has left us all a nice easter egg in there.
Once you've got the compression piston out of the bottom of the damper cartridge, you'll see that the three compression ports are only about .025" holes. You can open these up (with a hand drill if careful, I didn't want to indicate them in on the mill...) to around .0625, maybe a little bigger. Even with the stock shim stack this makes a monumental difference.
FYI, when I did mine I also put in .80 springs from Nick and 5w oil, forget the brand...
Pictures are of the components in order, the stock piston, then the modified piston.