Absorbing Stuff

[Guest BoBOKik]

Don't know your unsprung weight from your static sag, or your dual-rates from your progressives? Now you will

 

What do they do?

 

Front fork give a line of communication between handlebars and front wheel spindle, while providing suspension - absorbing irregularities in the riding surface, isolating the rider from bumps, keeping the tyres in contact with the ground and the bike level. Hit a bump with solid, unyielding forks and the force acting upwards on the front wheel can exceed that of gravity trying to keep it down, so it leaves the ground - not nice in a corner.

 

A spring placed between the main mass of the bike and the front wheel not only allows much of the upwards force of a bump to be absorbed while keeping the bike level but, thanks to its sotred energy, can accelerate the tyre on the downside of the bump, thus keeping contact. Without a spring, the fornt end of the bike could only fall back to earth as fast as gravity allows.

 

If, for example, the front of yr fuelled bike weights 150kg and the unsprung weight (wheel, brakes etc) below the spring is 10kg, then the acceleration rate can be calculated by dividing the force driving the wheel (a spring loaded by 150kg) by the mass of the thing it's acceletrating (a 10kg wheel). So we're dividing 150 by 10 to give us 15g (gravity, not grammes) of vertical acceleration, so your wheel can track the deck 15 times faster than with a rigid fork.

 

Spring Rate

 

Spring rate - the extent to which a fork spring can absorb the upward acceleration (ignoring inertia) of the wheel - is dictated by the spring's 'rate'. Spring rate is measured according to the amount of force it takes to compress it by on inch and if the 'pitch' (the gap betwwen coils) is constant, so is the rate. A 50lb-in spring will compress an inch for every 50lb of load until there is no travel left.

 

Let's say our 150kg (330lb) load is fitted with two 50lb-in fork springs and hits a bump one inch high. Each spring compressses an inch or so, bearing in mind there are two springs, 100lb of force acts upon the bike. Acceleration being the result of force (100lb) divided by mass (330lb), we're feeling the bump as 0.3g of upwards acclecration. Without springs the force would likely be serveral g.

 

Reduce the combined spring rate to 65lb-in and you'll be only feel 0.2g, so the ride will be smoother and the tyres will have an easier time tracking the road.

 

There is, though, a flipside to softer spring rates. Weigt will transfer further under braking, leading to excessive fork dive to the point when there's no travel/suspension left and weight transfer can throw the rear wheel skywards.

 

A spring rate compromise must be struck for the type of bikes, road surface and aggression of the rider.

 

Progressive springs

 

The life of a fork spring is tough. Not only must the spring be strong enough to cope with having the whole weight of a bike and rider being thrown on to it during hard braking, it must also be sensitive so as to track the road when lightly loaded under acceleration. Try to build a degree of compromise into the forks, most bikes now come with 'dual-rate' or 'progressive' springs as standard.

 

The closer the coils of a spring, for a given material and diameter, the 'softer' its rate. A dual-rate spring will have coils more tightly wound at one end than the other. Once all the close-wound coils are compressed, the wider-spaced ones come into play at a higher spring rate because the rate is inversely proportional to the number of coils in operation. So ther first half, third, or whatever, of travel can be sensitive with the last half robust enough to prevent 'bottoming' when hitting bumps under braking. Fully progressive springs have their coils wound, you guessed it, progressively further apart over the lenght of the spring for a smooth increase in spring rate as the forks compress.

 

Preload

 

Increasing preload does not, repeat not, make a spring stiffer. As the spring is already supporting the weight of the bike, pushing down on the spring simply raises the bike, increasing the wheel's available upward travel and altering the bike's stance relative to its height at the rear.

 

Too much preload can lead to another problem - 'topping out' - where raising the bike and upper half of the forks leaves too little downward extension. Hit a dip in the road and the fork springs accelerate the wheel to follow the contour. If, however, too much preload has been added and too little travel is left, the bike will fall harshly into the dip and the front end will leave the ground easily under acceleration as the forks fail to extend.

 

extracts from Bike Dec 02

[Guest Sotong]

Very informative

[Guest BoBOKik]

will be posting another one tmr... regarding damping.. kekeke siong ah.. leeching from the mag...

[henRRy]

will be posting another one tmr... regarding damping.. kekeke siong ah.. leeching from the mag...

 

Good stuff man.. btw which mag ya crapping from..?

[Guest BoBOKik]

 

Good stuff man.. btw which mag ya crapping from..?

 

ahem... did u finished reading the whole article... did u noticed a small italic print at the end of it....

[henRRy]

 

ahem... did u finished reading the whole article... did u noticed a small italic print at the end of it....

 

so smalll..

anyway thanks.. i will be going to bordersa and read this mag when nothing to do at home.

[BabyVTEC]

By the way what is project CBR???

gather all the CBR to chut stunts at yishun dam???

or race ard spore make teh boyz in white chase after u guys???

[kata_killer]

Wat CBR project???

[Guest aiya4]

Basic rules for suspension tuning

 

A primary issue with springs, front and rear, is to simply spring the ends so that when you push down on the footpegs (where most of your weight is when you aggressively corner).

 

Both ends of the bike NEED to go up and down exactly evenly, both in travel and rate. That's without damping!

 

 

General order:

Select a rear spring that will just bottom out over your harshest bump that you are riding on with "normal" sag. Soften it up till it just bottoms out, then tighten preload 1/4. Check the sag and see if it's in general range of 35mm to 20mm.

That's with no compression damping.

 

Select front fork springs that allow the front end and the rear end to travel equally and evenly when you bounce on the footpegs (helps to have someone hold the bike upright). That's after you have set the rear spring as in the above step.

That's with no compression damping.

 

Rear rebound: Use just barely enough to prevent wallowing in high speed sweepers.

 

Front rebound: Use just enough rebound to keep the front end from wallowing and drifting wide when exiting low speed corners at full throttle.

 

Compression damping: The goal is to use as little as possible. Use the proper, perhaps heavier than stock spring to do the major work during non-braking mode riding.

 

Use compression damping to trim if necessary and only if required.

 

Excessive dive under braking: Use increased oil level to firm the front end under hard braking. 5mm is a significant change in modern forks.

 

Goals are to always use the softest rear spring that works within "sag" range limit.

 

Use just enough rebound damping to control the springs.

 

Use as little compression damping as possible and only when required. Not everybody has a supply of alternate fork and shock springs, so you will probably have to improvise and use a bit of extra preload or a bit more compression damping to compensate for too soft of a spring.

 

All in all, there is nothing like heeling a bike over in a 120mph sweeper with a sharp edged bump in the middle of it and knowing that you can back of just a bit over the bump, get bounced in the air and calmly land heeled over, in control, straight and unperturbed and remain at highest possible speed with no fuss or muss.

 

That just doesn't happen if the springs aren't perfectly matched!

 

Cheers!

 

Marc

 

Taken off : http://www.cbr1100xx.org/newhome.html

[lokeks]

informative AND instructive.

Thanks dude.

[haohao]

[Guest BoBOKik]

SUSPENSION MYTHS:

 

* Preload only adjusts ride-height, it does not make suspension harder or softer. The only thing that really makes suspension harder or softer is changing the spring rate.

 

* Compression damping prevents the spring from absorbing energy too quickly. It will make the suspension 'feeli' harder, but it won't directly help to support the weight of the bike any more.

 

* Rebound prevents the spring frm releasing energy too quickly. At the extremes, not enough and too much rebound can both make suspension 'feel' too hard. The former because the spring extends uncontrolled, the latter because the suspension 'pumps down', reduce travel.

 

* Suspension adjustments never work in isolation. Changing one setting always affect something else. Altering the preload for example affects rake, trail and wheelbase.

 

* Never assume that aftermarket suspension, no matter how illustrious the brand, is going to work better that standard suspension

 

* The cardinal rule of suspension adjustment is never ever to adjust more than one thing at a time before testing your handiwork.

 

extracts from Fast Bikes mag - AUG 2003