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How do I get YZ suspension travel on my WR ?

By MidlifeCrisisGuy,
in WR400F/426F/450F

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Motomike1

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I seem to having the same problem as the OP.  I'm only 165 without gear but my forks bottom very easily, and very harshly. 

 

I did the fork seals recently and am running the oil 100mm(stock range is 95mm-132mm) from the top (without the springs). I'm also running a 7mm distance between the top of the forks and the top of the triple clamp. steers quicker, but very unstable at top speed...

compression all the way in, rebound most the way in, just mushy as hell.

 

I'm very disappointed with the WR, at the moment. :banghead: :banghead:

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JDLowrance
JDLowrance

If you weigh 220 the stock springs are way to soft for you.   I'd recommend minimum 0.48kg/mm up front with stock tank and no excessive gear (tool bag, camel back, etc.) or 0.50kg/mm with aforment

JTucker
JTucker

I'm over 250 and use a .54 and 6.7. It works pretty good, I think the racetech calc in general is little heavy on the fork and a little soft on the shock.

GuyGraham
GuyGraham

they maybe rated by Yamaha as 0.46 but if you get them measured you'll find they are way under this   My 0.46's measured 0.41 I put proper 0.46's in and it was a completely different bike MY

Grand Master

FORMA MOTO

Posted
Posted

I seem to having the same problem as the OP.  I'm only 165 without gear but my forks bottom very easily, and very harshly. 

 

I did the fork seals recently and am running the oil 100mm(stock range is 95mm-132mm) from the top (without the springs). I'm also running a 7mm distance between the top of the forks and the top of the triple clamp. steers quicker, but very unstable at top speed...

compression all the way in, rebound most the way in, just mushy as hell.

 

I'm very disappointed with the WR, at the moment. :banghead: :banghead:

 

And you have a '12 ?

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Grand Master

FORMA MOTO

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Posted (edited)

2009

Well, that's your problem.

The stock KYB susepension on all the WR's up to 2012 is substandard for anything but trail riding.'

You must re-spring and replace/modify the bottom valve and re-shim for your riding style.

Same goes for the shock.

The bottom valves are made of plastic, and yours are probably in pieces.

 

There are kits from Race Tech and Smart Performance and Provalve to fix it all up.

Edited by Krannie
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aussieklx

Posted
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Well, that's your problem.

The stock KYB susepension on all the WR's up to 2012 is substandard for anything but trail riding.'

You must re-spring and replace/modify the bottom valve and re-shim for your riding style.

Same goes for the shock.

The bottom valves are made of plastic, and yours are probably in pieces.

 

There are kits from Race Tech and Smart Performance and Provalve to fix it all up.

 

agreed.  i had my 04 forks and shock rework with full revalve and with tecnik springs for weight 100kg, and the stock 2012 setup performs better than this. i will still upgrade the springs for weight but the valving standard is very good on the 2012

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GuyGraham

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the guy who started that thread has about 80lbs (36killos) on me....

How much would racetech cost and what exactly do they do? Can't I just replace the fork oil with heavier weight fork oil, or shim something?

 doesn't matter - the point is the std forks are shockingly bad, no matter what your weight

 

Yes, you could replace your oil or shim something, but its not gonna fix your problems

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SteveThe Snakes

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the guy who started that thread has about 80lbs (36killos) on me....

How much would racetech cost and what exactly do they do? Can't I just replace the fork oil with heavier weight fork oil, or shim something?

Yea stop being a squirrel, call racetech get a valve that takes a shim stack. Yours does not it has a cheap spring in the base valve that sacks out and does not work.

Rick Johnson of Too Tech suspension told me he was able to put a shim stack in the wr base valve. It might be cheaper if your trying to be cheap.

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Motomike1

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Posted

Yea stop being a squirrel, call racetech get a valve that takes a shim stack. Yours does not it has a cheap spring in the base valve that sacks out and does not work.

Rick Johnson of Too Tech suspension told me he was able to put a shim stack in the wr base valve. It might be cheaper if your trying to be cheap.

I called racetech today and he quoted me at $340.  I'm not sure if I want to spend that much right now as I just got a job and need to make payments on my college loans. :rant:

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SteveThe Snakes

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I called racetech today and he quoted me at $340.  I'm not sure if I want to spend that much right now as I just got a job and need to make payments on my college loans. :rant:

 

Okay two things you can do. Put the racetech valve in yourself if possible. It comes with a dvd instruction video. Call Rickey Johnson of Two Tech suspension in Torrence Ca. very nice guy should be less expensive.

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beezer

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I would just put heavier springs in the bike front and rear if your low on funds.  The speeds on the east coast are slower and the forks and shock are not bad on single track.

 

Once you get some more money you can have the shims shuffled.

 

The only place where I didn't like my WR was on an MX track.

 

In the woods the bike was fine once the springs were changed.

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KennyMc

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To deal with the multitude of different terrain in the CA desert, I went with the '06 YZ forks, had ENZO respring them and re-valve them.  Best set-up yet for me.  I went through 3 tries with RG3 and once with SPI and I was still left wondering.  SPI was much better than RG3 but still found myself deflecting on the rocky stuff.  With the YZ/ENZO stuff, I actually stopped one time and checked my front tire as I thought I may have a flat.  It felt soft as I was going through some sections last weekend, it soaked up the smaller hits that was jarring me before. 

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RockerYZWR

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I called racetech today and he quoted me at $340.  I'm not sure if I want to spend that much right now as I just got a job and need to make payments on my college loans. :rant:

Hey - it may be not cool right now, but you are making the right decision to stick to paying off loans before throwing money into toys - good work!  That said, if you can put ANY money aside during the winter you could do this as a winter project before it gets to be riding weather again. 

 

I've got a 2011 WR and bought RT .50 fork springs, Gold Valves, and a .58 shock spring all for a little over $400.  Although I have a decent garage and lots of experience working on cars and other stuff, I'd never taken apart motorcycle forks before.  I watched a bunch of youtube videos and had the shop manual for the bike.  The first fork took me a few hours (mainly because I had to fab a Cartridge Holding tool (looks like this: http://www.amazon.com/Race-Tech-Fork-Cartridge-Holding/dp/B000WK46FS?tag=5336121818-20) as well as track down a 14mm hex driver/allen wrench to get the compression valves out (no place in my town had a 14mm, so I finally got a nut that was a 14mm size and welded it to another larger nut so I could use it with a regular socket), and the other fork took about 45 minutes.  I wish I would have had the right tools for the job right off the bat, because this would have honestly been a pretty quick job.  All of this to say that it's not hard and you can definitely do it yourself and save some money! 

 

And yes, the Gold Valves and heavier springs front and rear make a world of difference in handling and what the bike seems able to do, both at high and low speeds.  I went with a 115mm oil height with 5 wt oil and no preload spacers, but I'm going to revisit that with spacers (to adjust sag higher and bring me a little higher up in the stroke), and probably right at 90mm on the oil height (at the recommendation of RT) and possibly 7.5 wt, since if I really slap the front end down off a jump, it'll still bottom on the front.  Haven't bottomed the rear since the heavier spring.  Even though I don't have it dialed in yet, I can't recommend springs to suit your weight and a re-valve highly enough.

This link also helped me out with some questions when I was doing the job: https://www.thumpertalk.com/topic/683007-08-wr450-fork-valves/

 

I'm about 200 lbs with no gear by the way.

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JDLowrance

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Posted (edited)

Will the stock springs off a 07-09' YZ450 fit the 12+ WR450's? I was under the assumption they were the same forks until there was mention of the YZ450 having a 1/2" or so more travel.

 

The 06 to 09 YZ450 uses the same springs in the forks. Shock spring is a little different...

Edited by JDLowrance
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