2013 EC250R - 65Hr Report/Review

[Jakobi]

Originally Posted by twowheels

2011 as indicated by the seller. Silver fork lugs.

Thats odd. Everything I have seen shows them having the brown lugs. Think the YZ125/250 still got silver ones but thought they all ran the wider upper clamp too. So much info to track down.

[Jakobi]

Suspension project underway and has a thread of its own.

The engine was broken in nicely - dusty ride.


Steering head stem bearings completed. Old grease looked pretty OK still, but packed with fresh stuff. Pictured below is how they came apart.


and back together


Marzocchi 48mm CC serviced and revalved again - I will continue to use them for now. Removed a 12mm bleed shim from the mid comp and replaced with an 18. Opened up the float from .4mm to .5mm chasing a slightly softer feel/ramp up without feeling mushy. I'm using a 13mm bleed shim on the BV which still gives it quite a bit of compliance at low speeds. I'll report how it feels overall and then look at posting up the stacks I'm at if anyones interested.

[n_green]

Interested :-)

[fletchman45]

That bike is getting some nice love!!!!

[fasteddy]

I'll report how it feels overall and then look at posting up the stacks I'm at if anyones interested.

I'm interested as well, had them "set up twice" still am not happy with deflection from trail trash etc....

[Jakobi]

Originally Posted by fasteddy

I'm interested as well, had them "set up twice" still am not happy with deflection from trail trash etc....

Any idea what changes the tuner made? Even at the last revision I had no issues with deflection. Fork was just a touch on the firm side, but mostly I think that the 12mm bleed shims on the mid valve just meant that the rebound clicker was always turned right in. Even once removing the rebound side, you still get uncontrolled bleed via the comp piston as it never truly seals against the piston face. Moving from a 12 to 18mm face shim should reduce this and still leave some bleed.

[n_green]

I think I'm going to go this way next time my forks are apart, actually I may just do it anyway.

[Jakobi]

Yeah Nath. I put coins on it that it will be a jump in the right direction. Stock bike has a load of bleed, as well as a load of float. This makes for a really soft plush feeling fork which is really nice in the slow going technical areas, but as the pace increases or you get aggressive in how/what you hit I felt that the fork would start to thud and deflect instead of absorb and track true - at least thats what I felt when I rode the 2015 model the other week. It felt better the slower I went, as opposed to mine which felt better the harder I pushed.

Goal of this latest tweak is to land somewhere in between.

[Jakobi]

Smashed out a solid 70km loop today which covered rainforest (roots, red clay, fallen trees), light sandy covered hard pack, thick red dirt and rocks and also some goat tracks which were soft slippery sand littled with big joongah moon rocks. A good mix of terrain to test in.

Base valve may still be on the firm side of the field for me as I didn't appear to bottom them out and was still working in the 15-18 clicks range. Even with the stock BV stack this is where I found myself.

Mid valve. The reduction on bleed was a bit of a 2 sided sword. It made a really noticable difference to the rebound and allowed me to run the clicker at 10 out without feeling busy, but certainly allowing the front to return between impacts/feeling dead. It actually allowed me to speed up the rebound a touch more on the shock to keep it balanced nicely. Compression wise the fork felt less compliant on the small/slower impacts due to less bleed. It didn't deflect or do anything too scary in the quicker sections and cornered really quite well. The extra .1mm float did what I thought it would and was noticable in that the fork moved through the stroke easier.

Back to back, here or there. They both have pro's and con's. With more float I find the front wheel tracks the ground a little too much for my liking if that even makes sense. Like hitting something it wants to climb with/over/around the object where less float tracks straight through it. The latter obviously feels much firmer, but to me is also more confidence inspiring.

I'm not pulling them down to tweak out. They are good to ride and ride them I will. I think .45mm float with perhaps a 15/16mm bleed shim and maybe one less face shim in the mid would be spot on. Could probably afford to soften the bv a touch too but its not bad.

[n_green]

Interesting. Very interesting. So you're happy with rebound though? Won't tweak it any more?