Kawi2strokes.com Forum

What kind of upgrades can be done to these forks? Springs, valves anything else? Who sells these parts? Thanks JD

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Kawasaki 1975 H1
MV Agusta 2008 910R
Yamaha RZ 350
Yamaha XS 650 Street Tracker

Is there something in particular about your stock fork that you'd like to change? (damping, spring preload, etc.)

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

I'm building this bike from ground up. 1975 H1 500. The frame, forks and swing arm just got back from power coat. I want to get the bike to roller stage. I,m 6'2 and 265 plus I am going to be running ex500 brake. So any upgrades I want to do now, do it once do it right move on. Also having Works Performance build rear shocks now. Thanks JD

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Kawasaki 1975 H1
MV Agusta 2008 910R
Yamaha RZ 350
Yamaha XS 650 Street Tracker

For starters, with your weight, you might want to increase the preload. You can add shims made from PVC tubing to get your static compression to about 20% of travel.

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

Call Works Shocks and ONLY talk to Pierre in tech. He will need your weight with gear and the bike weight, and he will set you up with springs and spacers.

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Twist the throttle, tilt the horizon, and have a great time. What triples are all about...........

Johns mod to the alum rods is really good when you use the Race Tec cartridge emulators. here's the article I wrote for the UK Club Magazine awhile back:

Fork Improvements for the H Series Triple
by Jim Crenca

First off, this mod is the greatest thing since sliced bread; my H2 now has real hydraulic damping with great dynamics over rough streets, speed bumps, hard front brake use, etc.

Second, special thanks to Dr. James for explaining that cartridge emulators are not designed for a specific bike but rather a fork tube I.D.
I had called Race Tech a few years ago and asked if they had or would make an emulator for my H2; they did not have one and would not make.
While searching their site, they do offer a set for a late model H1 and the directions are very good.

http://www.racetech.com/evalving/englis ... me=english

1. You MUST have a late model H series bike with steel front fork damper tubes. The aluminum tubes are too small in diameter IMO after you drill 6ea 5/6" holes. Race Tech doesn't say this but I can't believe that there is not enough structural integrity with the small diameter soft aluminum tubes.

2. Order 1ea. FEGV S3001 pair of emulators ($169.99) as well as 2ea. FPEV AD3003 adapters ($9.98 for the pair)
The HMWC copper washers for the bottom bolt seal are the wrong size and I didn't opt for their fork oil at $30 per quart

3. Order 1 quart of Torco RFF Synthetic blend 15wt. fork oil; this stuff does not feel like regular fork oil and I believe it to have much less stiction; about $10 per quart.

4. 2' of schedule 40, 3/4" PVC plumbing pipe to replace the original metal spacer for pre-load (or cut up the original; I wanted the ability to adjust pre-load after more testing)

5. The fork dampers have 2 sets of clear holes over top of each other. Drill the bottom set out to 5/16". The set that are directly above need to be sealed; I threaded this hole and installed Allen set screws, mig welded and ground flush; then decided this might not be strong enough and brazed around the perimeter. Not the prettiest work by my hands and would have tig welded the holes closed in hindsight.

Now drill a 5/16" through hole 10mm (centerline to centerline) above your lower holes and at 90 degrees. Then drill another set 10 mm CL to CL and again at 90 degrees. You should have 3 clear holes or 6ea holes and might look something like this:


6. You will not use the original damping disc assembly and the new damper sits on top of the adapter which sits on top of the rod.



7. Here's a close up of the emulator; not terribly complex but not worth trying to copy (steal) for a lousy $170. Hey, if it's so simple, how comes you didn't think of it? (John Jacob quote)

8. I weigh 175 lbs and my bike weighs 430 lbs with fluids. I tried a number of different weights and race vs. street applications with their "digital valving search" and always come up with 140 mm of 15 wt oil and 20 mm of preload. They measure preload as the distance from the top of the top tube to the top sealing surface of the fork cap. In my case I ended up with something like 88.8 mm spacers. I'm using the stock springs but Race Tech and Sudco offer progressive wound springs; not so sure if this mod will add that much but would be interested to hear from anyone who can A/B the two different springs although new spacers would probably need to be made.

9. During assembly the adapters are dropped onto the modified rods from the top and then emulators drop on top of this. I used a high powered LED flashlight and a magnetic parts pickup tool to get these parts lined up. Once in place the PVC spacers and fork caps will hold it in place.

10. Take the bike for a ride and please post your results. As of this writing I’ve put down approx 250 miles with this mod and there may be more improvements with some experimentation. BTW, I'm using Redwing Hammerhead shocks and the overall handling improvement was nothing short of great. The stock shocks may not allow you to get the full benefit as I've never believed these shocks to work that well.

Best handling improvement for the buck and is added to my personal list of "must do" mods along with chambers, pods, and Sytec release.
(Still need to rubber mount the H2 after doing this mod to the H1)!

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Walms came up with some shock that look to be $110 Chinese copies of Ohlins and are air over nitrogen; thinking of trying some and would be interested if anyone has experience with these and Hammerheads as the only other shock I've ever use was stock which I didn't care for.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_W0QQcmd ... MEWAXQ3aIT

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There are only two types of motor sport racing:
Nitro and everything else
(Sometimes referred to as fast and slow)

I agree with previous statement , go Race tech valves there very good , well worth the effort ,urs Al in Aus

Jim, appreciate the post. But questions arise....

On the Racetech website they specify FEGV 3004 emulators for both H2 & late H1. Was this an offering when you made your purchase? Or is the FEGV S3001 better suited for some reason?

Do you have pics that are referenced?

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Answers are here: http://kawatriple.com/

Its not that much of a help, but here is a page from race-tech with a vague description of the valves. It appears that kit 3004 comes with the apapters( FPEV AD3003) that jim talks about. I can only assume that 3004 is now a bike specific part number while the part numbers that Jim listed were "generic" parts that fit a specific fork size. It would be also interesting to know what the "S" prefix is on the part numbers, the description stays the same as the non-s prefix number.

http://www.racetech.com/HTML_FILES/EMULATOR_CHART.html

Edit: After a little searcing it appears that the "S" prefix is for street bike forks and the non-prefix is for dirtbike forks. That still doesn't explain why Racetech says the triples use kit FEGV 3004 while there is a "S" prefix number in the chart(FEGV S3002) that uses the same description. I think a call to racetech should be in order if you are planning to run these.