Ok, before anyone says it I know that CR forks are the way to go. But in the class we have you cannot swap forks. We have to run stock forks. I am looking for some mods that can be done to make them work better on kart tracks. I will not be jumping the bike. I am thinking of cutting the progressive part of the springs and making spacers to stiffen them up. Is there anything that can be done to help the damping? I have heard about running ATF fluid, 10w-40, 35wt fork oil and a few others. Any other ideas?
When you cut the springs, you will make them stiffer. Spring rate is determined by number of coils as well as wire thickness, ride height is determined by preload. Here's a calculator that I have used to determine how much to cut springs for desired rate - http://www.pontiacracing.net/js_coil_spring_rate.htm I have read that ATF is roughly 15w oil with lots of detergents and you can mix it with other straight weight oils to get the desired viscosity. I had an FZR600 that I blended 20w and 15w to make 17.5w fork oil, which worked great for me. Just buy several different weights and mix and match until it feels good. Remember that oil height has a lot to do with how the fork feels at the end of the stroke, and if you aren't jumping the bike you can get away with having a very small air gap (relatively speaking). Sorry I don't have any specifics, but if you have time it's pretty easy to swap oils and play with different settings and spacers.
thats about the easiest and cheapest thing is cut some of the spring off and replace with a spacer the more u cut the stiffer they will be. run the the heaviest fork oil u can get 30w in those as they have almost no damping especially no rebound. u can also pull the damping rods and weld up the holes and redrill them smaller
