Intiminators installed: I'm underwhelmed.

[hayd3n]

I agree Mr. Taylor may indeed have sage words for me, but as I didn't purchase the product from him to begin with I would feel uncomfortable with asking for business knowledge and taking his time to answer my flaky "my KLR has shit suspension" questions.

All I really need to know is the correct OD/ID for the Ricor intiminator shims. (Yes it is a fecking stupid name).

To Be Honest , RT has always made time to answer any questions
i have given him,
i have spent maybe $200 in 4 years

(fork springs set to my weight and spacers )


But i received alot more for my money than i would ever receive trolling forums, or finding the best setup (to my Knowldge which is next to nothing) on fleabay,
or copying someone else's setup's

he rang my house to make sure i installed everything correctly
and was happy with my results.

I Believe RT would be disappointed if you didn't ask for his input or help

he puts great effort and skill into his workings,
for a pittance in return.

[James Deuce]

They should have called it a "Rambunctious Feckulator". I'd buy that and I don't even have a KLR.

[Woodman]

They have been called many things over the years.

Intimateanteaters, interiormunters, internalmentors, internationalminties.

To name a few

[Crisis management]

You need to listen to what Rogson said, (or talk to Mr Taylor) the intmidators are a cheap option, Racetech Emulators do actually work.

Disclaimer: I have no pratical knowledge of the KLR front end but I suspect it's no different from 99% of all other cheap suspension units.

[ducatijim]

Intiminators are a crock of shit.

I have a cheap DR650 set for sale but, very, very little use.

Swap for a beer.

[Robert Taylor]

I don't see how Intiminators can work. They don't require drilling-out the fixed orifice hole of the damping rod, so unlike cartridge forks (or Racetech emulators for that matter) they don't change/increase the original/primary damping orifice size on hard/sudden compression impacts. Intiminators try to get around this by using a lighter viscosity oil (less resistance to flow through the hole), but this is not remotely close to the effect of increasing the size orifice/hole the oil has to flow through. Also, by using a lower viscosity oil I question how they don't upset the rebound characteristic of the fork (which is sensitive to oil viscosity in fixed orifice damper rod type forks)

Yes you have basically nailed it to all of the above

About 3-4 years back we contacted Ricor, told them who we were and they kindly sent us some sets for test. Long experience has told me that with companies from North Mexico ( USA ) be very skeptical about their hype and general loudness. I really struggle to understand why so many Americans are like this.

They duly arrived and we installed in a donor bike SV650 that had well sorted Race Tech emulators and LINEAR WIND SPRINGS fitted. Stock undrilled damper rods were reinstalled. The things were terrible and just pushing on the forks you could feel and hear the Intiminators coming off their seats ( top of damper rods ) Performance was poor and nowhere near as good as the Emulators

We tested them without any pre-prejudice and I ended up sending a detailed report to Ricor that was straight to the point ( technically ) and devoid of any emotion etc. In that report I offered to return the Intiminators back to them. I have to this day never heard back from them again, they know only too well that we ''sprung'' their less than stellar product for what it really is. It amazes me how so many companies can sell flawed product but then there are so many gullible people out there as well that are prepared to believe the over the top hype that so many American companies poison the market with. These companies also prey on the ''self instal'' mentality and that often leads to really bad conclusions

Well fitted and calibrated Race Tech emulators will outperform Intiminators, no question. Progressive springs are also a 70s solution that wasnt a proper solution then and isnt now. If you have to fit these to gain some sort of bottoming out control / chassis control then its clear that the main culprits havent been identified:

1 ) Poor low speed compression damping control, or lack therof. This is caused by a number of reasons, many being uncontrolled bleed such as the damper rods not being fully in line with the centreline of the fork. Too much checkplate clearance in the bottom chamber etc

2) Lack of initial spring rate and pressure ( but then only increasing in force in a linear rather than overly progressive fashion )

3) Low oil level. There is inbuilt tunability of latter reaches of stroke progressivity in every fork anyway!!!! Simply raise or lower the oil level to tune latter reaches of stroke ''secondary trapped air spring compression ratio''. At least then youve got control over it rather than wasting money on a set of progressive springs that often will have too much progressivity.

[Woodman]

Yeah, well I am happy with how my front suspenders on the KLR are with progressive springs and intiminators.

Also have a Ricor rear shock and that is friggen even betterer.

Not looking for any improvement now.

[Robert Taylor]

Yeah, well I am happy with how my front suspenders on the KLR are with progressive springs and intiminators.

Also have a Ricor rear shock and that is friggen even betterer.

Not looking for any improvement now.

The best you have ridden is the best you know...................

The reality is it can be way better and if you think what you have got is as good as it gets you are well wide of the mark.

[chopperT]

Well, I really didn't mean to create a "this emulator is crap because..." thread. I'm sure enough in my own judgement to decide if what I have is crap.

What I was trying to determine is if the piece of crap that I have is behaving as craply as it should, or if due to assembly error I have a greater level of crapness than deserved.

RT, all points taken regarding hype/marketing, I'm a sucker, I fell for it, but I'm not chucking this stuff in the bin without making sure it is working (as craply) as it should

[chasio]

They should have called it a "Rambunctious Feckulator". I'd buy that and I don't even have a KLR.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to James Deuce again"

Pure gold.

[Robert Taylor]

Well, I really didn't mean to create a "this emulator is crap because..." thread. I'm sure enough in my own judgement to decide if what I have is crap.

What I was trying to determine is if the piece of crap that I have is behaving as craply as it should, or if due to assembly error I have a greater level of crapness than deserved.

RT, all points taken regarding hype/marketing, I'm a sucker, I fell for it, but I'm not chucking this stuff in the bin without making sure it is working (as craply) as it should

We did ''scientifically'' and very fairly test this product without any pre prejudice and frankly, an open mind. Had it worked significantly better than our own Race Tech emulator installations we would have approached Ricor to request becoming the NZ distributor, for what thats worth in this new world of ''scorched earth'' open slather internet marketing.

But the product fell well short of what anyone with knowledge / experience would in all fairness regard as at minimum acceptable performance. Especially when combined with largely discredited progressive springs that is a cocktail for highly unacceptable square edge bump compliance. If you inadvertently run off line whilst leaned over on a bumpy road the difference between falling off and staying on the bike will often be as simple as how well or otherwise the suspension is able to cope with sudden deflection velocity imparted to it. I wonder how many people have thought about that?

I don't care if anyone comes on here saying that their Intiminators and progressive spring combination is working okay. They will 100% not be working to an acceptable standard. If they rode the same bike with a carefully installed Race Tech emulator ( not the dodgy soft alloy chard distributing Thai copies ) and linear spring combination / oil level they would choose the Race Tech combination, hands down. Its like comparing Sue Bradford to Claudia Schiffer. One is drop dead ugly and noisy, the other is beautiful and with a reserved nature.

I have a real problem with the loudness and brashness of so many Americans ( although there are a few good ones ) and how it manifests itself in their over the top hype in marketing. In fact we could do ourselves a favour and also them by deporting that fat arrogant German Kim Ding Dong Dit straight to them

That I sent a detailed report to Ricor without any emotive statements and received no reply speaks volumes. Its hard to see how these lemons could be cost effectively modified to make them work to an acceptable standard without a lot of work that would inevitably involve using a dyno. The problem is that like emulators the fork springs hold them in place and you dyno all suspension units with the springs removed. The ''shim stacks'' are little better than thick washers and the effective clamping diameter is so big that its difficult to imagine how any HIGH SPEED FLOW MODULATING deflection will occur, aside from the device lifting off its seat. Which we heard as an audible ''clack'' independent of that ( over hyped ) inertia activated bypass bleed. Little better than fixed orifice damping. The outside edges of the ''shims'' ( or rather washers ) arguably ''kiss'' the one way check valve but its hard to imagine them sealing. Perhaps that's just as well because the flow restriction on high speed compressive movements is abundantly obvious.

Indeed to make damper rod type forks work properly is a whole lot more than about ''throwing in a set of Emulators ( or anything else oversold as ''the second coming of Christ '') and everything will then be a land of milk and honey! 99 times out of 100 the end result will fall well short off what is possible.

Most damper rods will not assemble straight into a set of forks, that means that the top hat ( sealing surface ) will not be perpendicular to the centreline through the fork. So how in the hell will an Intiminator with its rudimentary and totally flat bottom face seal against the top of the damper rod? In fairness it does have a secondary piston ring but it will struggle to seal when the damper rod wont allow it to seal flat and this will impart sidethrust onto the fork springs pressing upon it, causing even more rubbing against the inner walls of the fork tubes. That slowly wears off small chards of metal that always find their way into embedding themselves into the soft Teflon outer coating of the fork bushings, not good.

Unlike Emulators ( which are still a relatively crude device ) Intiminators have no means of positive centralisation into the top hat of the damper rod, by means of having a stepped down engagement lip. That further exacerbates the lack of positive sealing, offset to the centreline, uneven / inconsistent sealing and wear on its piston ring and causing unwanted extra side thrust on the springing.

As someone else said in but one word, they are a crock.

There are further very real improvements that can be made to damper rod forks such as making lower chamber checkplates that will deliver a more positive seal by reducing unwanted bypass bleed. Ricor have made a bandaid, but one that is neither sticky or protective.

Indeed it will be interesting longer term to see how much distress there is on the Intiminator piston rings and how much wear / galling there will be on the underside of the Intiminator and top of the damper rod.

We gave up trying to re-engineer these stupid bloody things to work. What it prompted us to do was to make a single sided ( at the time) CKT Emulator. It was basically an outer housing that positively screwed and locked into the top of the damper rod. Within that housing we installed a high flow Ohlins 25mm motocross compression piston with a proper modulating shim stack that would allow mass flow oil movements when required for. No jumping off its seat when hydraulic lock threatened! In its centre was an adjustable low speed compression by pass bleed. It worked fantastic and with Geoffrey Booth riding ( SV650 ) won every race of the VMCC winter series a few years back.

Those who are keen students of history will be familiar with the term ''those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat its mistakes'' In the 60s and 70s Ralph Nader was a watchdog of the automotive industry ( and probably others ) . We sure as hell need the likes of him again to protect consumers both from their own ignorance and the wild inflated claims of unscrupulous sellers.

As an adjunct to my ramblings above we have two sets of Intiminators here. We would rather crush them than re-sell them.( and technically they are not ours to sell anyway ) Integrity should always come before profit.

[Woodman]

Cool,

Have you ridden a KLR in anger with stock versus intiminator/progressive/forkbrace set up? (Just a question, not a windup) Night and day in my experience.

No I have not ridden a KLR with your setup, in fact I haven't heard of anyone who has had the work you describe done on a KLR.

Maybe I am odd, but I really enjoyed the couple of rides I had when my rear shock was blown. Awesome fun

[pete376403]

Robert, do you have any opinions on this product - http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Progress...6d4edf&vxp=mtr

[Night Falcon]

yeah man...what he said

[Robert Taylor]

Cool,

Have you ridden a KLR in anger with stock versus intiminator/progressive/forkbrace set up? (Just a question, not a windup) Night and day in my experience.

No I have not ridden a KLR with your setup, in fact I haven't heard of anyone who has had the work you describe done on a KLR.

Maybe I am odd, but I really enjoyed the couple of rides I had when my rear shock was blown. Awesome fun

No, but the dynamics of damper rods are essentially similar in so many bikes. And we have a HUGE sampling range as we do this sort of work for a living. Indeed you are in a minority in thinking that what you have got is acceptable. It may be acceptable for you but I for one am not fooled for a moment, nor as it seems are so many others that are less than impressed

I cannot comment on the rear Ricor shocks as I have never seen one. But if we had the opportunity we would adjudge fairly and without pre-prejudice