Sonic Springs installed.... I think something's wrong.

[Danny500]

Hey guys, long story short.

Installed the .90 sonic springs in my 00' GS today. I followed the directions SonicSprings gave me as well as what I've read on here and I think I may have done something wrong.

My springs are HELLA... and I mean HEEELLLLAAAA stiff. Following the supplied directions and such I ended up with a 4.25 inch spacer. (108mm).

What I did was, I filled the shock back up with the supplied 15w oil, pumping all the air out and such as directed. Then I dropped in the spring, and the STOCK washer on top. Then, dropped in the spacer tube, marked off the top of the tube, measured 1.5 inches down (about the length of the cap) and cut it.

Dropped it in, threw 1 waser on top, and screwed the cap in... when I screwed the cap in there was NO resistance of the spring and the top washer actually rattled until I could get the cap torqued to spec.

Next, I installed the whole front end, tightened everything up and dropped the bike back down. Then I sat on it...

There was NO sag in the front end... at all.
When I pushed down on the shocks the's exactly 60mm of deflection... (2.25 inches of travel).

What the hell!

Are these shocks suppsed to be THAT stiff? I fear I may have to swap them for something a little less drastic if so.

The thing is I can't cut the spacer any shorter because I'll just lose height in the front, not rigidity.

The scary thing was is that I took it for a short ride afterward and every time I went to stop I popped the back tire off the ground... It's also PAINFUL over bumps. No compression, just pain.

I'm affraid to ride it like this because I don't want to blow anything up in the bottom of the shock... I mean, if it is JUST the spring causing this... then it's an easy (yet pain in the ass) fix.

Any suggestions???

Thanks.

Dan

[Danny500]

Hold on now. I did a search and everyone is saying that on their .90 springs they used at least a 140mm spacer (5 - 5.5 inches) and that they weigh less than 200lbs... and still achieve sag.

My spacers are just over 100... is this my problem? Do I need a longer spacer to get more travel? If so... Someone lied to me.

Dan

[jroymcd]

how much do you weigh? 0.9 springs a pretty stiff.

what happens if you try to lift the wheel off the ground? If the spacer is way too short the wheel would  drop and you should be able to hear the spacer or spring clunk around.

you might have your oil level wrong or your spacers are way too long. You sure you are measuring the oil right and you sure you cut the spacers to an appropriate length? What is your static  sag at?

[Danny500]

I used exactly 380mL of oil in each fork. Fully compressed and 'bled' the level was about 5 inches from the top of the fork tube (about what my original travel was).

Extended, with spring installed, and washer added the oil level was JUST to the top of the spring. The spacer I cut, again, was 108mm and it came just shy of the bottom of the fork cap bolt when It was completely locked down... otherwise meaning there is absolutely NO pre-load on the spring.

I weigh exactly 230lbs. with gear, 245lbs.

With the front wheel off the ground there is no clunk, nothing sounds loose, and the forks don't drop past where they were with the bikes weight on them.

There is no sag to speak of when the bike is just sitting there, maybe 5-10mm when I sit on it, but that's IT.

Again, when I hit the brakes and bounce on it or try to go over a bump I'm only getting about 2.5 inches of deflection out of the front end.

That, and it's SO stiff that I actually locked up the front tire and skidded a bit...

It's like, normal riding or hard braking or bumps I only get 2.5inches of play.

Dan

[Danny500]

For instance, if you read this post... my problems make no sense...

Dan

I have mine .90 Sonics in with the spacers cut to 5.5 inches. This gave my a static sag of 1.4 inches with my gear on. With gear, I'm at about 205 lbs. Static sag is the amount the suspension changes from holding just the bikes weight, to holding the bike and your weight.

GS forks have 4.7in of travel (120mm). So in an ideal situation, you should set your static sag to about 25-35mm.

Hope this helps.

BTW, Here is a previous post about my install:

Ok, After testing various oil levels and spacer sizes, this setup seems to work best with the Sonic .90 springs, for my weight and size (5'10 @195lbs without gear, about 207lbs with helmet, boots, jacket, gloves etc..)

Total Spacer Size of about  5.65" or 143mm
(PVC cut to 5.5" and placed 1/8" thick washer on top- removable in case I lose weight  )

Fork Oil Level, as measured from top of fork tube to oil surface, 5.3" or 135 mm
(measured with forks compressed and springs, spacers, and washers removed -oil level increased about 3" with everything in)

This setup has me at a static sag of 1.4" or 35.5mm with my gear on.

The ride is 10x better than stock. It's firmer, but not at all harsh, and No more brake dive. 

Ok, now some advice:

1) Before you start, get some painters tape and wrap it around the handle bars where they meet the clamps. Mark on the tape where they meet the two halves of the cleamp. This will help you get the bars back on the bike in exactly the same place they were.

2) Measure twice, cut once. But, just in case you messed up cuts or want to try different lengths, Lowes hardware store has 5' lengths of 1/2" of schedule 40 PVC for about $2. If you want, pick up some 12mm washers while your there -for a little fine tuning of the spacer size.

3) If possible, use a miter box to cut the PVC. You want to get the cuts as straight as possible. I used one, and they still were not perfect. But, they were real close. The PVC seems to melt during cutting making it difficult. I suppose it's not a big problem, as the spring will conform a bit to meet the spacer.

4) Get some old towels and layer them over your tank and gauges, because no matter how careful you are, some oil will spill out when you remove the old springs. The towels also provide some cushion, just in case you drop a tool on the tank when working. Tools tend to get real slippery when you working around fork oil.


Hope this helps!   

[jroymcd]

no way your spacer is too short. If it was the bike would sit lower and would would have some sag.

If the spacer was cut correctly, You have too much oil or something binding up.

[Danny500]

How do you mean cut correctly? size wise?

Dan

[jroymcd]

yeah. the forks are pretty simple. not too much can go wrong.

Ive never done it on a GS YET.  But,  ive installed sonic springs in two of my old sv's. Should be the same.

just not sure how long the spacer should be for a GS

[Danny500]

Well, I just ran outside to double check everything and here's what I got for numbers.

This is all with a zip-tie around the fork leg to measure movement.

Wheel in the air, dead set at 0.

Set bike down, then jacked back up: Exact movement of the fork was 13mm

Next.

Jacked bike up, Set bike down, I got on, wiggled up and down a bit, then sat there for a second.

Moved zip-tie down to top of the shock while sitting: Exact movement of fork from 0 was 38mm


Now, I can go out and hop, push and beat down the front end... and I only get about 40mm of play. (less than 2 inches)

Dan

[Danny500]

Somehow this posted twice, so read the next post!

Whoops!

[Danny500]

Ok... so I just went out and popped open the forks just to double check everything.

Here we go.

1. Took off caps, took out spacers, took out springs (all 'lazy' way).
2. Allowed the forks to compress all the way down.
3. Made a dip-stick marked at 5.5 inches from top (because that's where everyone says it's supposed to be at)
4. Checked forks levels. Left side was 2 inches over full, right fork was 1 inch over full.
5. Used turkey baster and removed oil till both forks were even at 5.5 from top.
6. re-installed everything.

Already I notice a huge difference.

Here are the new numbers:

Initial sag (bike only): 13mm (no change)
Sag w/rider: 50mm (38 was initial install)
Total travel: 76mm (40 was initial install)

I'm still only getting 3 inches of travel, but that's with just me bouncing on it.. not real world road conditions.

So I think I fixed it. I think the whole problem was that I didn't drain the old oil evenly... out of both tubes and then put 380mL on top of whatever was still left in there.

Right now I think I need less sag w/rider, maybe drop it to 40mm with a thicker spacer. We'll see.

*sigh*.. well, we'll see how it rolls in the AM.

Thanks for the help.

Dan

[jroymcd]

 

[coll0412]

Glad you fixed the problem!

You leaned an important suspension lesson, assumptions and hasty work makes for a shitty ride. Adjusting the fork oil level is actually a good way fine tune the adjustment of suspension since the compressing air inside of the fork acts like a progressive spring. During braking it helps with the full travel length compression.

Also if its chilly out in your area the 15w may be too thick for winter time riding. I know if I go out in 40°F weather with 20W fork oil the thing is way way over damped for riding.

[5thAve]

Yeah there are posts in here if you search 'em that deal with how to get the residual oil out of the forks. Those forks actually hold a lot of oil even after you've poured it out by inverting them.  Good for you on solving this one.

[Danny500]

Well, I'd still like to get at least another inch of travel out of the forks.

My thoughts are, drop the oil level to about 6 or 7.5 inches from top and up the spacer to about 5 inches.

This will give me exactly 1/2 inch of pre-load on the spring, and since 5.5 inches from the top gets me 3 inches of travel, the 6 or 7.5 should (theoretically) get me another inch.

We'll see.

Dan

[coll0412]

Your oil level is good, you should adjust the preload(via a longer spacer) to reduce the sag with rider. 25-35mm of rider sag is a good number(this is on top of the 15mm of free sag).

You should only hit full travel of the suspension when you are doing hard braking, simply bouncing the bike most likely will not allow you to bottom out the suspension with the proper springs.

Don't forget to adjust the dampening of the rear shock(if you can) to match the dampening of the front suspension. If you can adjust it, but don't know what to do let me know and I can give you directions to adjust the dampening.

[Danny500]

So when the bike is free-standing on it's own under it's own sag, when I get on there should be an additional 25-30mm of sag?

If so, a longer spacer is no biggie, easy fix.

Other than that, my rear shock doesn't allow dampening, only pre-load adjustment. It's an SV650 shock. I do get MUCH more squat in the rear now that the front end is so much stiffer.

The other thing is, I'm installing a slightly taller/wider rear tire (150/70) and dropping in some 2-4" lowering links as well. So I think I'll wait to adjust the rear until everything else is in.

But, just so I know... are you talking about simply clicking the preload up a few notches on the rear?

Dan

[RichDesmond]

So when the bike is free-standing on it's own under it's own sag, when I get on there should be an additional 25-30mm of sag?

If so, a longer spacer is no biggie, easy fix.

Other than that, my rear shock doesn't allow dampening, only pre-load adjustment. It's an SV650 shock. I do get MUCH more squat in the rear now that the front end is so much stiffer.

The other thing is, I'm installing a slightly taller/wider rear tire (150/70) and dropping in some 2-4" lowering links as well. So I think I'll wait to adjust the rear until everything else is in.

But, just so I know... are you talking about simply clicking the preload up a few notches on the rear?

Dan

You should have 30-35mm total sag. Don't worry about how much it sags under just the bike's weight, that's not relevant for you at the moment. You want the difference between fully extended and sag with you on the bike. Measured like this:

http://www.sonicsprings.com/catalog/setting_sag_street_tech_article.php

50 is too much, if that's an accurate number you need a spacer about 15mm longer. The directions call for 10-15mm of preload, with the way you cut your spacer you didn't have any. Not good.

Did you pull the forks off and invert/pump them to get the old oil out?

And for everyone, if you have a problem with the installation/setup of our springs, PLEASE shoot us an e-mail. I try to monitor the e-mail on the weekends for just that reason, even if I'm not in the shop.

[Danny500]

You should have 30-35mm total sag. Don't worry about how much it sags under just the bike's weight, that's not relevant for you at the moment. You want the difference between fully extended and sag with you on the bike. Measured like this:

http://www.sonicsprings.com/catalog/setting_sag_street_tech_article.php

50 is too much, if that's an accurate number you need a spacer about 15mm longer. The directions call for 10-15mm of preload, with the way you cut your spacer you didn't have any. Not good.

Did you pull the forks off and invert/pump them to get the old oil out?

And for everyone, if you have a problem with the installation/setup of our springs, PLEASE shoot us an e-mail. I try to monitor the e-mail on the weekends for just that reason, even if I'm not in the shop.

Yeah, I was following the directions that got sent with the springs and was a tad confused with them. The whole "theoretical" "2 inch minus 1.5 inch" sort of blanket info didn't really do much for me... so I was like.. OK... 0 pre-load it is! Lol.

Thanks,

Dan

[Danny500]

Ok, so it's been a couple months but I found out some unfortunate information.

I made new spacers and dropped them in, got the sag around 33mm, but after I bounce on it or move even the slightest bit the shocks move up and down. Not that this is a huge problem... but I inquired about this at another forum.

On the forum they actually have a suspension guru of sorts out of Boston, MA. So I inquired to him about my shocks etc.

He said that I definitely need a 1.00 rate spring in the front since i am over 200lbs. Which makes perfect sense.

So I'm about to e-mail SonicSprings and see about an exchange... this sucks, but is awesome at the same time. I'm glad someone knows a definite answer on such things! Lol.

Dan