Hey everyone, so on my Salsa Deadwood, I have a RS Revelation that was EXTREMELY harsh so I have upgraded virtually every part on it and have essentially made into a Pike. I replaced the Motion Control damper with a Charger 2 RT3, bled the damper, swapped out the air spring to a Debonair spring, installed an MRP ramp control and swapped the seals to SKF low friction seals. And it still feels harsh. I have the low and high speed compression opened all the way up and dropped my air pressure a ton trying to get it to soften but nothing is working. I've also played around with tons of different rebound settings. The chattery bumps are just terrible. I have put a lot of money into this fork trying to fix the problem but I'm considering cutting my losses and possibly trying a coil fork. I have been considering a Cane Creek Helm coil or possibly even continuing further with my current fork and installing a Push ACS 3 ... Am I making a mistake? What should I be looking out for or things that I should consider before making a decision. Thanks
Harsh fork ... switch to coil?
SuperUltraKel
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Yup bushing friction is a huge contributor, and even more so on the trail once you add in the bending forces of hitting a bump straight on. The damper isn't generating much force at all at small bump speeds so your friction and spring settings are the main thing to focus on
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So I took it out today and ran it at 85psi with -10 clicks rebound from slow. Open high and low speed compression and no ramp control. I will admit, it did feel more supported and poppy with no brake dive, but it also didn't feel like it was soaking up the bumps. It felt sort of "bouncier". It was great for popping of jumps and pushing through berms but didn't really soak up the trail like I was hoping it would. At the end, I checked my travel indicator O-ring and it was sitting at 90mm (out of 140) .... I was only getting 65% of my travel. Granted, I didn't have any HUGE drops or massively big hits, but it was relatively lively out there. I would have expected to maybe not bottom out but get at least over 90% travel. I guess I will try again with the 75psi setting and see how that goes, but so far it is looking like I might not have been too far off initially.
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I had a Marzocchi Z1 on my GT STS: it was plush! An incredible improvement from the previous suspension Rock Shox that used elastomers :madman: but the Vanilla, especially after I pushed it, was another story. Lovely fork. As I mentioned no air fork came close for 15 years ... bunch of crap really when you think how much they charge ...
Sounds like you need more positive chamber volume.
does that mean "ramp control" turned to zero or does it mean you removed the cartridge? It must take up some space and is not the same as running no volume spacers at all. If it were my fork I'd be getting rid of the ramp control cartridge.
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I love the fact that you have a sizable rolling toolbox in what appears to be your living room.
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That is actually a good point .... I think it said that the cartridge itself accounts for a single token. and since I am not really using it anyway (by turning it all the way off), there is no point in having it in there
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I wondered if that might've been the case... or the nicest garage I've ever seen.
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I just did another ride with 75psi and no other changes ... this time I ended up with 95mm travel used (out of 140 .... 68%) .... again, this isn't a trail that I would expect to use ALL of my available travel but I would have expected it to be closer than that .... I'm pulling the ramp control unit tonight to see how that affects things.
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I actually rented a shockwiz for the weekend and have a couple rides on it so far .... I started it out at 75psi and it adamantly said to remove air ... took it down to 65psi ... still says to remove air. Tomorrow’s ride ride I’m going down even further probably to 55psi to see what it says. I don’t want to put all my faith in this device but so far it is jiving with what I am feeling and the issues I’m noticing (too rough and not getting full travel) ... we’ll see after tomorrow if things improve.
Sounds like your suspension pump gauge is way off. But a lot of smarter people have already adviced you in other aspects. To me it sounded like you have way too much pressure or too small volume, are you sure your ramp control is ok? Remove it and install token instead of it to be sure that it doesnt actually take more space than a token.
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My pump is good ... I was just running WAY to much air. After running the Shockwiz over the weekend, I finally settled at 50psi (as measured both from the Shockwiz and from my Cane Creek digital pump)I think the biggest issue that I was having was that my rebound was set too slow. (Too much rebound damping) Upon taking the advice of others earlier, i removed the ramp control and installed the stock air cap with no tokens and I sped up the rebound significantly and that combined with the lower pressure and it is like a new fork. It feels SO much better now. I got almost all of my travel with a little left over for an emergency. I could probably tune the Charger damper a little because it is still saying to turn down the low and high speed compression (and they are both set completely open) but for now it is light years better than it was before.
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Yeah now you need to remove too much preload from your compression stack to fix those issues (and maybe also mid valve modification to get hsc fixed). Glad to hear it feels good now though. Btw did you release air from the lowers in the sag position with a zip tie? It could be causing you to have to use such low pressure if you have pressure in the lowers.
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I thought the pressure was too high 
I personally like no tokens and more pressure. But it is a harsher way to setup your fork, but I enjoy the linear feel and control. I dont think stuffing a fork with tokens is ever good, but try maybe one token and even lower pressure.
I personally like no tokens and more pressure. But it is a harsher way to setup your fork, but I enjoy the linear feel and control. I dont think stuffing a fork with tokens is ever good, but try maybe one token and even lower pressure.
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