Do Fork Spacers Work???

[Jerka]

I was just reading about the fork spacers on the modifications page and eventhough I've looked at that page 10 times, I never realized that it was just added to the stock setup...I thought it was in addition to progressive springs. 

Does it work?  I don't feel like dropping the money on progressive springs right now (gas just hit $4/gallon here).  Also, how long do they need to be?  The write up says 31mm diameter and 200mm length, but I think the 200mm length was the total length of the piece before he cut it.  So, how long should it be?

Is it worth the time or should I just wait for progressives? 

THANKS!

[dgyver]

Save up for the springs. Increasing the spacer length does not help the fact that they are under sprung for most riders. All it does is increase the preload, which will decrease available travel. Bad suspension is also a cause of poor tire wear, mainly cupping.

[ben2go]

Dgyver can back me on this.We changed the tires on my GS recently.I had ran the stock GS front end about 1000 miles before I upgraded to progressives.My tires were new and they cupped really badly because of the soft GS front end.Now I'm riding on a Katana750 front end and Katana750 rear shock.Pushing 120-60 front tire and 160-60 rear tire on Bandit600 4.5 inch wheel.OHHH YEAAAA. 

[mach1]

So I got some springs that have been heat treated the guy put them in oil and set the oil on fire so make the harder will that really work( It did for my tools I made)

[ben2go]

They will probably become brittle,at least that's what happened when I tried that.

[qwertydude]

Yeah that's not the right way to heat treat them. You're supposed to heat up the springs to about 1600 degrees, that's yellow hot, then dunk them in oil. The oil then bursts into flames and the cooling steel absorbs the carbon. He's just replicating the visuals ie flaming oil. I can guarantee you that nothing happened to the metal since it was under the flaming oil. After hardening you then have to temper it. Heating it to I believe 700 degrees then slowly cooling. Both these steps must be done properly so the steel doesn't become brittle. But what your friend just did was just a fancy light show. 

[Afzzr12]

Yeah that's not the right way to heat treat them. You're supposed to heat up the springs to about 1600 degrees, that's yellow hot, then dunk them in oil. The oil then bursts into flames and the cooling steel absorbs the carbon. He's just replicating the visuals ie flaming oil. I can guarantee you that nothing happened to the metal since it was under the flaming oil. After hardening you then have to temper it. Heating it to I believe 700 degrees then slowly cooling. Both these steps must be done properly so the steel doesn't become brittle. But what your friend just did was just a fancy light show. 

You are right.  Lighting the ol on fire did NOTHING!!  You are close to correct on the process but there are soak times for different thicknesses and depending on how hard you want the metal to be.  I don't think you can heat treat the GS springs with out running into the problem of them being overly brittle.  Brittleness means cracking and cracking springs is NO good!

[The Buddha]

Hey guys ... how far off from coil bind is a GS front suspension spring, as in, OK I am bottoming them lets say, ~1 inch before the lower triple hits the outer fork leg ... say I added 2 inch of PVC spacer ... would I then bottom out due to coils binding ...
Cool.
Buddha.