Brake dive question?

[Mercer]

I have been tuning my dive while braking again and some more. Would like to know from some other C10 owners the amount of front fork compression you have while braking hard. It can be measured by placing a zip tie around the stanchion above the seal. Where it stops in upward travel is how much the fork compresses. Currently mine travels to 1 inch from top. That is 4.5 inches of travel. Spec is 5.5. That measure would be touching bottom of triple tree for reference. Trying to determine if more travel is really there. Any effort in this answer is most appreciated. Thanks Mercer

Ted?

 

[Bud]

Install straight rate springs and set the sag. The brake dive will be what it will be.

 

[lrbuck]

Front end dive is influenced by your weight, the viscosity of the fork oil, the fork spring, and spring spacer height (if used). HTH.

 

[rwulf]

That sounds like a bit much. With that much travel used up by braking there is
not much left over for bumps to be absorbed.
I believe others have found setups that don't dive that much. Hope someone
who has worked this out will chime in.

 

[Mercer]

My query is dive in inches during hard braking.

I have all other parameters of suspension tuning now to my satisfaction for my personal weight and road conditions here in Louisiana. Road conditions here are sub standard and change with every significant rain.

Of note brake dive is controlled most significantly by amount of oil in system. Once your fork's oil weight is determined to your preference would add. Then the amount of oil factor affects the last third of fork travel. Hence controlling brake dive. It is a compromise between suspension range of travel and dive. Too much oil volume equals to little suspension travel. Too little oil is too much brake dive.

Few people save racers perhaps tune for this. But I am now at that point of tune and so close to what I want. Suspension tuning has been most fun and now it is close to as perfect a set for me of compromises as I can master. It is time consuming to experiment however.

I was hoping to collect some data to see if most C10 forks have the full range of 5.5 inches of travel as stock spec per manual. If not I will quit where I am at 4.5 inches of travel. If others have 5.5 inches then I will proceed to remove some more oil by volume.

For those who use the 6 inch for late and 13.9 inch oil measure for early forks, my compliments. That is not what I am about. Those two specs can be fine tuned further with due diligence.

Thanks in advance to any who would post their hard braking measure by zip tie method noted in first post above. If I sound like a know it all my apologies. I am not at all most certainly. Far from it! Just have been learning new things and applying them to my C10 most favorably now. Getting close to a set of compromises that work for me!

For reference and leisure reading: https://racetech.com/page/title/Emulator Tuning Guide

 

[Mercer]

Larry Buck...........
You are right on the money there in above! That and oil volume. That is why I ask everyone to post their weight when making fork tuning information available as to what works for them. Oil volume measure is important too. With everyone's advice I experimented far and wide. Now am nailing it down to final determinations for my set of factors and compromises. Yeah one size does not fit all..................
Thanks!

 

[Denny in NJ]

I'm not a suspension guru but when I replaced the original progressive springs (because I thought the front end dive was excessive), I replaced them with Sonic 1.1kg straight springs and 15wt oil. Don't remember if I changed the volume of oil. Probably used the amount recommended by Clymer manual. Then using your zip tie method to set the preload (sag) while stationary. The amount of brake dive will be highly variable and as Bud said, the amount of brake dive will be what it will be. Anyway, the straight springs will greatly lessened the brake dive.