Fork damper valve

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Apr 16, 2025
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When the fork moves from compression to extension and vice versa there is a zone where the damper valve is just floating around doing nothing.
If a light spring was fitted just to keep the two parts in contact, the valve would work properly, wouldn't it?
Anyone tried this?
Any thoughts positive or negative are most welcome
 
Yes there is a zone where the valve is moving between the 2 positions and provides no damping, its around 1/4 of an inch. It shows itself most on fast flat roads when the forks are only being moved slightly ie that +/-1/4" but at high frequency, the handling feels mushy. The way to fix it is to delete the current valve and have two opposing valves with one way working on each. One working in compression and the other in rebound, that leads to removing the current damper completely and replacing with Honda inserts made by Showa with shim stacks.
 
When the fork moves from compression to extension and vice versa there is a zone where the damper valve is just floating around doing nothing.

When the fork is compressing the valve is open and when the fork is extending the valve is closed.

If a light spring was fitted just to keep the two parts in contact, the valve would work properly, wouldn't it?

Not if it holds the valve closed when it should be open. The valve opens or closes as it sees fit so I can't see what difference a spring would make.
 
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