2011 Sachs Forks - Tuner Info

[twowheels]

I'm doing a little maintenance on the 48mm Sachs forks on my 2011 XC250 ... turns out the cobbler's children do get shoes after all ... and I noticed some interesting changes from 2010.

The rebound stack is much softer overall, with 0.15 shims on the 2010 being replaced with 0.10 shims on the 2011. The mid-valve stack also changes from 3 25.0x0.2 shims to just two. Float increases, stack stiffness decreases ...

On the base valve side of things life gets really interesting. The tap itself is the same from 2010 to 2011, but the valving strategy is very different. The bleed holes are dropped from the compression piston and there is a significant straight stack before the cross-over in contrast to the 2010 parts. More surprising though is that the tap, piston, and stack in the 2011 bike are significantly DIFFERENT from a replacement set I ordered early this year. Perhaps GasGas could think about incrementing part numbers

What's this all mean? - pick a tuner that can deal with what he finds when he opens up the fork legs ... chances are its different than what he may have expected to see, and a cookie-cutter approach will be ineffective.

[armyoforange]

anything anodized inside

[Dave A]

So what are you seeing with the 2011 marzocchi's?? My 300 six days is way under sprung for my 195 dry weight and feels to be over damped. I'm changing out F&R springs .46 & 54Nm this week as a starter. Time permitting i may pull the stacks apart to spec them. I'm very intereseted to know what you are seeing????? Are the internals the same as the older 45's and open chamber 50mm.

Regards,
Dave

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by armyoforange

anything anodized inside

Quality parts for sure, although the casting lines on the pistons are somewhat sharp. Nothing out of line, just different ...

[GMP]

Dave, the Zokes are easy, respring and basic revalve, including adding rebound. Much discussion here. Nothing much different from Husky Zokes, except perhaps the bleed hole in the rebound piston if the '11 still has that.

[2whlrcr]

So what's in my forks 2wheels? I just remember Layton saying the stack was completely different than stock 2010. My forks are much smoother and the harshness is gone, but I'm bordering on being too soft now. I've thought about raising my oil level a little and I'm still at a middle compression setting.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by 2whlrcr

So what's in my forks 2wheels? I just remember Layton saying the stack was completely different than stock 2010. My forks are much smoother and the harshness is gone, but I'm bordering on being too soft now. I've thought about raising my oil level a little and I'm still at a middle compression setting.

The stack is different - in fact the shims are stiffer in general, but the compression piston is a completely different design and 9mm thick instead of 14mm in the 2010s and early 11s. There are no bleed holes in the piston, and the tap is 4mm shorter overall.

Glad you're liking the new valving - the mid-valve mod was one of the best things you could do to the Sachs forks. Dial in a couple clicks more compression, add 10mm of oil and enjoy

[mrkartoom]

Maybe this explains why I am pretty happy with the stock performance of my Sachs units so far. I need to hit some other terrain and get them fully broken in, but I was expecting more issues after all the reading up on them.