Fork cartridges...Ohlins vs Traxxion

[Tony.OK]

Dont get me wrong mate I wasnt trying to burst your bubble or anything I think you are doing a great job I was just trying to give my thoughts ,Hope it all helps.
Cheers

Nah I was just taking the piss mate,I know I've got a ways to go yet,pity I've decided to start at 35 hahaa,times already running out

[Tony.OK]

I was merely pointing out that...does the up and coming racer need to have the best and latest equipment to improve his lap times?? does getting the cheque book out the sensible way of doing it always??
but meh...I really don't think anyone is getting my megure little point/opinion.

I totally get ya Poos,I asked the orig question thinking maybe one product had a wider scope for adjustment,sending forks off whenever something doesn't feel right doesn't appeal to my wallet.
Mmmmmmmm now where did I see that slipper clutch

[HDTboy]

I'm not sure if you're aware that revalving is part of Robert's aftersales service. When you buy your gear from him, he revalves for the fee of freight, or can do it at the track at no charge (so far as I'm aware, correct me if I'm wrong).

[Robert Taylor]

I'm not sure if you're aware that revalving is part of Robert's aftersales service. When you buy your gear from him, he revalves for the fee of freight, or can do it at the track at no charge (so far as I'm aware, correct me if I'm wrong).

In truth we have optimised the settings on those FGK cartridges pretty well. Again the perception is that constant revalving is a neccessity, in truth it is us pushing the envelope all the time for the contracted distributor riders we work with. But we still find time to help other people that have purchased product from us. If they buy offshore ( and especially havent even given us the chance ) then they pay the going rate. That is fair.

Heck, if we werent at the circuits with our trackside revalving capability would there be anybody else there doing it? Everyone would be riding around with what they brung....The Ohlins cartridges have lifted the game ( with more to come ) and the trackside service has lifted the game. Frankly, as a term of comparison Kiwi road racers are very well served at a low cost. Those that have been overseas will agree with that 110%.

[Shaun]

In truth we have optimised the settings on those FGK cartridges pretty well. Again the perception is that constant revalving is a neccessity, in truth it is us pushing the envelope all the time for the contracted distributor riders we work with. But we still find time to help other people that have purchased product from us. If they buy offshore ( and especially havent even given us the chance ) then they pay the going rate. That is fair.

Heck, if we werent at the circuits with our trackside revalving capability would there be anybody else there doing it? Everyone would be riding around with what they brung....The Ohlins cartridges have lifted the game ( with more to come ) and the trackside service has lifted the game. Frankly, as a term of comparison Kiwi road racers are very well served at a low cost. Those that have been overseas will agree with that 110%.

The service you provide at the race tracks is very valuable to the riders that want to improve-win!- You and I both know how much working together in past, helped me to claim a few plates over the years mate!!!!! Thanks!

BUT SORRY, Re running what ya brung i.e. NO REWORK from the box

Steve wood, set pole position, and won one race at Pukekohe at the last round of the NZ champs, using a PENSKE shock, as it came from the factory, with only 2 adjustments, EXTERNALL ONLY!

As well as using Traxxion GAS CARTRIDGES in his forks, RE SPRUNG BY YOU! Thanks again.

Ohlin's and your service is brilliant, but there is an alternative availlable now, that seems to work from the BOX AS DELIVERED- well, in this case anyway.

As Craig S has said, his Traxxion AK 20 was good/great! But the new spec Ohlin;s fork kit you deal with, has gone a step further, But in fairness to traxxion AK20 Kit, it was a few years ago that Craig last used there product, so it is very hard to compare an apple with a Peach!

I realise as a technician, you have tested and re developed your product for the NZ market place ( Great for all concerened) but there are people looking for improvements from what they have, ( At the lowest possible cost) and the traxxion AK 20 kit, is very well priced, and works very very well!

PS, your workshop is going to look very Kool when finished, many riders will have to take a trip to Taranaki to take a look at it

[Robert Taylor]

The service you provide at the race tracks is very valuable to the riders that want to improve-win!- You and I both know how much working together in past, helped me to claim a few plates over the years mate!!!!! Thanks!

BUT SORRY, Re running what ya brung i.e. NO REWORK from the box

Steve wood, set pole position, and won one race at Pukekohe at the last round of the NZ champs, using a PENSKE shock, as it came from the factory, with only 2 adjustments, EXTERNALL ONLY!

As well as using Traxxion GAS CARTRIDGES in his forks, RE SPRUNG BY YOU! Thanks again.

Ohlin's and your service is brilliant, but there is an alternative availlable now, that seems to work from the BOX AS DELIVERED- well, in this case anyway.

As Craig S has said, his Traxxion AK 20 was good/great! But the new spec Ohlin;s fork kit you deal with, has gone a step further, But in fairness to traxxion AK20 Kit, it was a few years ago that Craig last used there product, so it is very hard to compare an apple with a Peach!

I realise as a technician, you have tested and re developed your product for the NZ market place ( Great for all concerened) but there are people looking for improvements from what they have, ( At the lowest possible cost) and the traxxion AK 20 kit, is very well priced, and works very very well!

PS, your workshop is going to look very Kool when finished, many riders will have to take a trip to Taranaki to take a look at it

That is in all reality only half the story. As I believe it Terry Fitz won the last race and broke the lap record in doing so. Bear in mind that Steve is a young and very aggressive rider ( and a very polite one to boot ) and is prepared to hang it on the edge much more so than the codgy old guys he is racing with! Terry ''woke up'' and then set a new lap record, as he had also done at Manfield.
Its also very relevant to point out that Steve Wood set pole positions at other tracks and won his first race with an old worn out Ohlins not spec'd properly for the bike.
I very much doubt that the Traxxion settings as delivered have improved and certainly all the AK20s floating around are not stock as delivered from the factory. And the Penske shock is likely to have a Traxxion piston in it. ( correct me if wrong ) The Gas cartridges are indeed better than the AKs ( at a price ) but could be a lot better again if the checkplate midvalve was ditched, all else being equal with achieving pressure balance.
I have no doubt at all that Steve would have gone faster again with an FGK kit in the front and the dedicated race setting SV Ohlins or the high spec TTX36. The very same equipment that won the F3 title, winning all but I think 3 of the races, and won all the street races.
I think it is a very dangerous thing to say that all will be well at every circuit in NZ, on every stretch of road and with every rider, out of the box. In fact I can already predict what issues there will be in our ''climate'', which are fixable. Pull apart, change, put back in the box so someone can pull it out of the box.
With respect to the AK20s knowledge that we have gained can actually be applied to make them better.

[jrandom]

I can't help but think that it would be possible to set up a controlled experiment to measure suspension performance.

Data on vertical accelerations transmitted through the top of a shock absorber (ie, ride smoothness) combined with the total amount of wheelspin (ie, how well it maintains traction) should be the desired output, no?

Not sure how you'd set that up to control all variables aside from the shock absorber itself; you'd want to be able to do some kind of repeatable run across a surface with various irregularities with identical power input to the wheel each time.

You could then reliably correlate damping curves and spring rates against ride quality and traction levels, etc.

I hear what Mr Taylor et al are saying in these threads, but it all sounds very subjective - how can one prove that a certain damping curve affects behaviour on certain surfaces at certain speeds in a certain way? Common sense, intuition, rider impressions and lap times on circuits are all well and good, but wouldn't stand up as data in a scientific journal.

Sure, you can measure how a shock performs in a machine that squeezes it and pulls it, but where's the hard correlation to how that behaviour will affect traction and ride quality?

It'd make an interesting ME thesis project.

I assume that such rigorous experimentation is performed by the engineers at Ohlins and Penske during the design process, but of course we wouldn't have access to any of the data generated thereby; it'd be strictly a trade secret.

All this ongoing suspension discussion sounds a bit like smoke and mirrors to me. Engine tuning, for instance, is easy to quantify - run the engine on a dyno and observe the torque it generates.

Suspension, though? It all seems so subjective, so 'I liked the feel of this' or 'I rode faster on that'. Robert asserts that such and such a design provides benefits, but how on earth can that be quantified?

Robert, if you have a chance to address the subject, I personally would be quite interested to see some damping curve graphs, with explanations of how each curve affects ride quality and traction on different types of surface irregularities traversed at various speeds.

Heck, I couldn't even tell you what the axes on a 'damping curve graph' should be. Would two dimensions even be sufficient?

I read all this 'high/low speed' stuff as indicating that the rate of compression does not have to change linearly as the force changes; ie, ten times the compressive force does not have to equal a ten-times-faster rate of compression - it can equal a twenty-times-faster rate, etc.

Showing the rate of compression given a particular force against a particular compression position would require three dimensions. Is that how the curves are graphed?

[Tony.OK]

I could picture a rolling deck whick can have different bumps textures added,a fixed set of forks that can lean to simulate real life,then it would just need a datalogger of sorts to measure stroke and sideways movement from a fixed line to indicate slide.
Piece of cake

[jrandom]

I could picture a rolling deck whick can have different bumps textures added,a fixed set of forks that can lean to simulate real life,then it would just need a datalogger of sorts to measure stroke and sideways movement from a fixed line to indicate slide.

Yeah, that's about what I had in mind.

[avgas]

dude VHS is dead.
Now its FORK DVD's.

[Shaun]

That is in all reality only half the story. As I believe it Terry Fitz won the last race and broke the lap record in doing so. Bear in mind that Steve is a young and very aggressive rider ( and a very polite one to boot ) and is prepared to hang it on the edge much more so than the codgy old guys he is racing with! Terry ''woke up'' and then set a new lap record, as he had also done at Manfield.
Its also very relevant to point out that Steve Wood set pole positions at other tracks and won his first race with an old worn out Ohlins not spec'd properly for the bike.
I very much doubt that the Traxxion settings as delivered have improved and certainly all the AK20s floating around are not stock as delivered from the factory. And the Penske shock is likely to have a Traxxion piston in it. ( correct me if wrong ) The Gas cartridges are indeed better than the AKs ( at a price ) but could be a lot better again if the checkplate midvalve was ditched, all else being equal with achieving pressure balance.
I have no doubt at all that Steve would have gone faster again with an FGK kit in the front and the dedicated race setting SV Ohlins or the high spec TTX36. The very same equipment that won the F3 title, winning all but I think 3 of the races, and won all the street races.
I think it is a very dangerous thing to say that all will be well at every circuit in NZ, on every stretch of road and with every rider, out of the box. In fact I can already predict what issues there will be in our ''climate'', which are fixable. Pull apart, change, put back in the box so someone can pull it out of the box.
With respect to the AK20s knowledge that we have gained can actually be applied to make them better.

"CORRECTED" As I have told you many times now, the Penske Units I bring in, and Steve won on, are Genuine from Penske Racing Factory, NO TECHNICIAN has modified them as yet!

Traxxion Gas charched cartridges- $ 2695-00- Not to bad, and within range of another product.

I am only a middle man, so no skin of my nose what people purchase, Just trying to give a quality alternative service, with a product that I would be very happy to ride on.

[johnsv650]

i thought stevie rode very well all year, not the fastest bike, with help from robert and kerry, he got better and more confident as the nationals went on, the help we and he recieved was outstanding and we now know what the others have in there bikes,

[slowpoke]

Nah I was just taking the piss mate,I know I've got a ways to go yet,pity I've decided to start at 35 hahaa,times already running out

What the hell are you thinking dude?! This is the new millenium.....you've won a coupla races so just retire undefeated, get yourself a nice wee drug habit, a coupla skanks to look after the place and enjoy the fruits of your labours....this "constant search for improvement" business is just so last century......

Seriously, mate yours was one of the stellar performances of the weekend, and you looked so smooth doing it. That you are still thinking about sensible improvements (numpty's like me chase unuseable horsepower every time, haha), and asking questions, says a lot about why you are already so quick.

[johnsv650]

so,
robert for next year for the sv650 what do you recommend and is there any new products still to come onto the market before december 2008 and your help and advice was very confidence building and much appreciated.
whats your views on carbon fibre wheels over standard ?
shawn please answer as well......

[cowpoos]

Poos your round next time!!!!!

Mate I'm just a poor racer making my way through this highly taxed,low income world we live in!! with the high tax rates on ciggerettes and beer...its hard to get by!!

But yeah...must be my shout by now!! lol...I think I may owe craig a couple too for some reason [and a rubber duck]