Racetech Fork/valve Upgrade With Pics.

I've completed my Racetech upgrade.  I sent my shock down to them for servicing, and did the forks myself.  The mods made a pretty huge difference.  At this point, I'm still not sure if I'd have preferred 2 stage valving, or the single stage I installed (compression - forks) but time will tell.  In the end it's a dramatic change and very nice.  The bike now moves with the trail instead of against it.  

I found some spots were a bit confusing and difficult the first time through.  So I've documented my experience to try and help a bit for others.  The first fork took about a week, the second fork 2 hours.....  If you read the Racetech suspension bible, watch all the install videos, and google everything you can find, then follow this thread, you should be able to get it done in an afternoon.  Racetech's valving guide for our bike was incorrect that they sent out.  I've attached the correct one in this thread, so if you're going to do your forks, make sure you call them to double check the valving chart.

Okay....here we go.....

First thing was to get the shock out and the swing arm disassembled.  I figured I'd do the linkage maintenance while I had it out.  I have 2500km on the bike, but they're all hard trail



Here are the swing arm bearings.  I had a bunch of water and goop come out of mine.  You can setup the arm so that it's sitting in a couple of jars of mineral spirits (I'm just gonna say varsol from now on) - I left mine in there for about a month while the shock was getting done over Christmas.  In the end, you've still gotta get it into a parts washer and clean it all out.  I can't stress enough how much everything needs to be thoroughly cleaned.  Anyway, don't force any of the shafts out or back in while you're disassembling.  Inside you can see the needle bearings (rollers) and they sit in a plastic like membrane that contains them.  Probably acts as a lubricant too.  The plastic can get damaged (stay tuned).  In hindsight, I wish I would have just bought a bearing kit from all balls or the like.



Here you can see some of the damage that occurred to the dog bone.  It might have been this way, but I pulled and pushed the shaft in and out a couple of times before I figured out what was what and that may have done it.  Look closely and you can see the bearings and the plastic / rubber membrane.  No....it's not old grease or rust, that's the membrane and this is after I cleaned it thoroughly.



The needles drop out of the link arm (relay arm I think they call it) where the membrane doesn't exist.  Clean 'em up real good and count them.  It should be an even number (can't recall how many there were) and split them between the two halves obviously.  It's a tight fit with all the grease that you're gonna pack in there.  Google high5's instructions on this - they're pretty good.  I didn't take enough pics of this part of the work.  



Here's the grease I used.





Not sure what this blurry craptacular pic is - swing arm I think.  But get lots of grease in there and I filled up the galley's between the bearings too.



After the needle bearings were set back into the relay arm.



When I put it all back together I kept all the bolts loose until everything was in, then torqued them.  Don't even think about doing this without a torque wrench......

Now on to the forks.....

There aren't rebound valves available for our bike, only compression (gold) valve kits. I'm pretty sure the rebound valve is accessible though, so I'm thinking of taking them out next time I service the forks and modifying the valves. Once you dig into the ins and outs of the valving it's pretty basic. Anyway.....that's for next year.

After you loosen off the triple clamps, you'll need to use a big screw driver to spread the lower clamp apart a bit. Hold on to the fork! It's gonna come loose once you gently spread it just a little.



Getting the cap off and oil out is pretty simple - follow Racetech's suspension bible for that. They're documentation shows really nice tools and benches.....stuff I don't have. I started like this, but switched to taping cardboard onto the jaws of my vice. Works pretty good. Better yet would be to take the time to remove the steel jaws and replace with oak or even add an aluminum cap.



Don't give your girlfriend the camera.....



My setup is a bit different than at Racetech......



Okay - so the spring is out and now you've gotta get the compression valve and the damping rod out. Don't piss around with screw drivers or broom stick handles or anything else. Buy the Racetech tool. I made my own, but it only lasted long enough for this job and I made it out of steel tube. Mind you.....if you're gonna make one (I probably will again), you could go with a larger diameter tube, and most importantly it needs to have a thicker wall than what I used here. Tough to find.....



The problem you're gonna have is the valve gets stuck in the fork (previous photo) and you end up with the damping rod out - here's where the valve screws in. On our bikes, the allen key bolt that you see at the bottom of the fork is part of the compression valve assembly (virtually anyway).



If you end up here, just insert the damping rod back into the fork and impact them together carefully. The threads are fairly fine so it's pretty much impossible to cross thread them. I had it apart and back together probably 10 times before I built a tool to hold the damping rod.



Okay - so I built the tool in about 10 minutes. I marked the steel tube and hack saw'd out sections so that it'd fit into the damping rod thingy. Because the steel tube isn't big enough (biggest I could get at Rona - next time I'm gonna get a piece of rigid conduit) the back side had to stay solid (no cutouts) as it fits in close to the rod. See below.... That's what happens on sunday at 5pm when the stores are closing and you wanna get the f&*%king compression valve out.....









Impact wrench is an absolute must.....





And there it is.....

So now I'm getting pretty excited and I move on to disassembling the stanchion from the fork. I found the instructions misleading and I made a mistake - don't do what I did.....



You pry the dust seal up and out, then you get the little clip out - just gently pry each hoop out of the groove with a mid sized screw driver, it'll pop out nice and easy. NOW is the time to start the slide hammer action to pop out the main seal and outer bushing. The clip is shown in the pic above the outer bushing. The inner bushing is in my hand. The bushings are teflon coated. I damaged some of the teflon on the inner bushing around the one edge. I felt that it was still smooth and put it back in but really shouldn't have. Fingers crossed until next servicing when I'll replace the bushings. In hindsight, since you're likely only going to replace the seals once a year at best, I'd just buy a bushing kit and replace them too. Or at least ensure you have them on hand in case there is some damage to the teflon.

Onto modifying the valve.....

Okay - here's the original valve. You will only need the nut, and the base plate (thick washer at the bottom).



I had a real tough time sorting out what the valve is to look like at the end. Call Racetech at this point and make sure that you've got the right valve stack instructions. Mine is a CH9 - quite different from the chart that they sent me for a Virago 1100 or whatever it was.... Anyway - the tech committed to getting their database in order on that front and I have to say that their customer service is totally top notch. Would deal with Racetech again in a flash..... Here's the valving chart I used.



It took me a little time to sort out the shims, but they were organized in three stacks in the package. All the smaller .10 (x9-x15) shims were in one stack with the damping plates if I remember correctly. The damping plates are easy to sort out because they have a larger inner diameter. This goes on top of the gold valve under the spring. The .10x17 shims were in another pile, and the .15x17 shims were in another. I measured them all with a vernier. A micrometer would work better but we're going for ghetto here..... I could not tell much of a difference in flex between the .10 and .15 shims though they say you can.

Okay - so....here's what not to do... Your valve shouldn't look like this, though it might work. In this case I used the supplied nut / spring washer and three spacers under the base plate.



Here's how it should be an pay close attention to where the top plate sits on the rod. It has to sit over the groove properly or the valve isn't going to work. In the end, you should be able to move the check plate up and down freely against the spring. Pretty much just follow the race tech instruction.

This is our valve, but I have a single stage stack (no cross over).



So - done correctly (IMO), this is what it should look like. I ended up using one spacer under the base plate (pretty sure it was one, might have been two....damnit.....pretty sure it was one). Anyway, the purpose is to line up the cupped washer at the groove like shown in the cutaway.



When you're building the valve use contact cleaner on everything. I kept spraying it everywhere and using compressed air to clear everything out every step of the way. Watch the Racetech vids on this as they have some good advice to avoid locktite, or filings in the valve. Pretty much just keep laying on the contact cleaner with each shim and keep it all clean as a whistle.

Okay - now reassembly.

I wrapped saran wrap around the stanchion about four times and then greased it all up. Worked pretty well. The dust seal is the hardest thing to get on. There is a sharp lip and knurled section that'll rip up the seal if you don't do this.



Grease the seals to slide them on.....





Don't give your girlfriend the camera.....



Dust seal, clip and main seal on the lower stanchion. I put the outer bushing and washer on at this point too, above the main seal obviously.



Inner seal (this one isn't damaged)





A seal driver is an absolute must - first to get the main seal and bushing seated, then the dust seal.







In goes the damping rod.



Make sure there's no burrs on the tool, and then clean all the tools in the varsol tank - don't want to get any dirt or bits into the forks - they'll plug those little valve ports pretty easily.





In goes the damping rod holder and then impact and torque the compression valve.







My tool failed at this point - really needs to be a thicker wall. The tabs started bending so it's a bit under torque, but I at least got it cranked in real good with the impact first.

In goes the fork oil now. My level is 120mm. I ended up just using a vernier on the second fill and got lucky. It totalled somewhere around 500ml I think, maybe a bit more. The key is the level. The idea is to overfill it and then have a syringe type tool with a fixed amount (120mm) of tube on it and suck out the extra oil. I used a gas pumper but was going to use a turkey baster with some tubing which would have worked great. In the end - check it with the vernier.



Per Racetech's instructions, block the end of the tube and compress it to force oil into the valve and damping rod (goes easier if you backed off the compression adjuster all the way first) and then cycle the damping rod up and down several times to bleed the air out.











In goes the plastic thingy (there's a recess on the lower side that mates to the bushing) and the screw on top. You can get it relatively tight just by holding the plastic - it's a jam nut so I don't think it needs to be super tight or anything. Mine came off pretty easy initially.



Now....there's a tool for this - would be easy to make one too. You want to thread a rod onto the damping rod to pull it up or you're gonna be ghetto and mess around with a screw driver and 17mm wrench to raise it through the spring.









On goes the cap, hold the jam nut and tighten it a bit.



I tightened the cap in but didn't torque it until the fork was back in the triple clamps. I found it too difficult to clamp the fork in the vise to torque the cap, even though it doesn't need much (like 10 ft/lbs).



Screw driver trick to get the fork back in the tree.....





And that's it! So far so good. I wouldn't suggest you go just by my methods. I can see that buying the tools such as the damping rod holder, even the level tool, would make the job easier and less likely to result in damage to the fork. The best resources I found was a combination of the instruction sheet that came with the valves, the Racetech videos, and the race tech suspension bible, but none of them were enough on their own.

The job really wasn't too difficult, but next time I'll be using a cleaner bench and be a bit more prepared.

Cheers and good luck!

  

Very informative post this will help some one revalve their forks!

Im running the dual stage valving setup in mine.
I have cl9 and ch7 from the chart.
I also just shortened the springs making them about .50kg/mm.

I had my gold valves installed by a guy a ride with who does suspension work and has had a lot of forks apart, he let me help/watch as we did it.

We reused the stock check spring and cupped washer in mine above the check plate, it lined up perfectly with the stock base plates and the race tech special nut didnt as its for an other applacation or incase the stock one doesnt line up. You get some things you dont need in the kit and the instructions are meant for a bunch of different bikes too.
With a different amount of base plates or shims the suplied special nut and check spring would work tho, we just found it easier to put the stock stuff above the check plate back, since it was right where it needed to be height wise.

The instructions arent that great but as you found out you can call them, they're very helpfull on the phone.

Thanks for the post! I ordered the motion pro damper rod holder before diving in. Straight forward. Used 2.5 motul at 120mm. Compliance +.
Valving , I went with a 2stage. (3).10mmX17 for the slow speed- a 10mm crossover and a 17 to 8 divergent stack for high speed.

awesome post!

Great write up! let us know how it holds up.

Jim79 wrote:

Great write up! let us know how it holds up.

How what holds up?

The suspension is just as reliable and last the same as stock, valving doesnt wear out it just makes the bike work better hitting bumps lol.

Jim79 wrote:

Great write up! let us know how it holds up.

So far so good.  I've found that it's beautiful in the trail, but kind of rough when I hit a fast square edge like a pot hole or a rock or something on an FSR.  Otherwise it's been awesome.  I think I went with a couple more clicks compression and a couple less rebound, but that's all kinda personal preference and depends on what you're riding. I'd really like to get in there and modify the compression valve - it's too bad they don't offer a compression valve kit at Racetech....not sure why.....

The rear shock has been great too, though I need to dial in the damping a bit more after the ride I just did this weekend - found it a bit boingy over a bunch of whoops, so a bit less rebound will be dialled in.

LordEndo wrote:

There aren't rebound valves available for our bike, only compression (gold) valve kits.  I'm pretty sure the rebound valve is accessible though, so I'm thinking of taking them out next time I service the forks and modifying the valves.  Once you dig into the ins and outs of the valving it's pretty basic.  Anyway.....that's for next year.

LordEndo wrote:

So far so good.  I've found that it's beautiful in the trail, but kind of rough when I hit a fast square edge like a pot hole or a rock or something on an FSR.  Otherwise it's been awesome.  I think I went with a couple more clicks compression and a couple less rebound, but that's all kinda personal preference and depends on what you're riding.  I'd really like to get in there and modify the compression valve - it's too bad they don't offer a compression valve kit at Racetech....not sure why.....

Was just reading this thread in preparation for my own suspension mods.  The highlighted comments by the OP don't seem to agree, but I get the general idea that he was able to replace one of the valves and not the other.  FWIW Race Tech does currently offer both compression and rebound Gold Valve kits for the WRR.

http://racetech.com/ProductSearch/1/Yamaha/WR250R/2011

Sigh....how I miss this forum! You are correct sir....I meant rebound valve and that's great that race tech offer one now. My second comment that you highlighted no longer makes sense then.

Since this post I seemed to stop bothering about the square edges and pot holes. I did find that I could still bottom it too easily. Next level up in fork spring diameter or slightly higher oil level would have helped, though the latter could affect speed of the fork perhaps? A higher rate spring would have been the right answer. I was investigating putting YZ forks on it as well....now that would have been neat.

Sadly I packed it all in and now I'm riding orange. The KTM is vastly superior in the trail, though to put that in perspective I could ride the same trails on the WR2. Just not as fast and nimbly. What I miss is just jumping on the WR2 and going exploring. It was a better bike from that perspective.

Anyway - I hope the post helps you and that you enjoy your WRR as much as I did.

Cheers.