FF: Forks New Coilover for Girdraulics

davidd

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Rob,

You are certainly welcome. I think Carleton has 3 years of riding on his stock Series D Shadow coil over and Patrick has 4 plus years on the Flash racer. It was Carleton who surprised me by indicating that the front coil over ride seemed superior to the spring boxes.

The Works Performance damper I measured years ago had 2.85" travel to the snubber and a .25" added travel from the squish of the rubber bumper. All of those units were custom CNC builds and there might have been some travel variation over the years, but it does not appear to have amounted to much.

David
 

bmetcalf

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I saw Carleton’s bike last year, but I don’t remember that it didn’t have the springboxes. Has he taken them off? I’d be tempted to retain them w/o springs to keep the original look.
 

davidd

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Bruce,

Yes, he has. This is from the 2015 Shadow Lake Reunion.
North American 2015_82.jpg

But, you didn't seem to notice!

David
 

greg brillus

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A local friend of mine has installed two of the same coilovers that I used on the race bike on his Comet. The ones I used had the two pivot centers at 270 mm apart. He is using the same ones but they are 250 mm centers, and he has made some springs of different spring rates at around 6 inches long. I remember the ones on the racer to be about 300 Lb's on the rear and about 170 or so on the front, this with a fully sprung rear seat. After last weekends racing, we had changed the wheels/tires from 19" to 18" with a 130 mm cantilever type rear tire, and changed the front and rear brake linings as per David's recommendation. Phil said the handling and the brakes had improved very much, and he felt that the bikes handling was very similar to a modern sports bike. I always felt that the suspension on that bike to be excellent and very comfortable, the front end to be very fluid in its movement and behavior. A coilover on the front is a huge improvement over the standard set up. A couple of observations...........they cannot be installed as easily as the shock absorber on it's own, because you cannot compress it to install it. You need to remove the upper fork blade spindle to install/remove it. The shocker on the racer was 270 mm centers this with the Modified steering stem and short type lower eye bolts..........If longer eye bolts had been used the rear lower centre of the upper link would have fouled on the spring ........This is why the spring needs to sit lower on the unit. A 250 mm centres unit would probably cover both types of steering stem but has less available travel. It needs to be set up so as to position the lower link at the right angle before any weight is put on it. The issue of the guard/stay hitting the exhaust can occur if the bike has say a 21" front wheel and if the lower stay is the longer one .........This needs to be moved forward either with a shorter stay or a similar mod.............Just as a point of interest..........For the guard to actually hit the exhaust, it would need the steering to be at that angle and with the suspension very much compressed ...............I feel it would be nearly impossible to duplicate that under any normal riding condition short of the bike nearing a very bad incident ...........Lastly......... I would certainly be checking that the fork blades aren't bent as this too will move it all to the rear, surprising how many bikes may have bent blades and the owner doesn't even know.
 
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davidd

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Bruce,

I did not mean to imply that you were in the photo! Yes, it is Egli owner Ward Moss sitting out of the frame on the right.

David
 

Albervin

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the one on my Brampton Alphabet twin copes but at the top it retains the tapered hole fixing and at the bottom the spring anchor is reinforced with plates from the head lamp lug
Of course the handling on Bramptons was good before I fitted which is why I took the Girdralics off a long time ago (so long that I paid £100 for the girders:cool:) Now with this unit the front has even better handling.
View attachment 24809
That looks suspiciously like my unit Tim. Who made it for you?
 

vibrac

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I got it from US at the na rally that was held at mount st Helen's I believe it was a batch made for California section
 
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