2011 six days fork fixed (kinda)

[matt_tidball]

Ok now 72 hours on my 2011 six days 300ec. It took 2 tries to get the rear Ohlins 888 like butter, but not so lucky on the 45 Zokes. I am a A level vet single track racer. I have read many many posts to understand the issues others are having before having my tuner tear into these forks. I will try to remember all the steps we have done to this point but it is all becoming a blur.
First we moved the pivot shim down like seven shims and removed 3 or 4 shims. While inspecting the parts I found the end of the tubes that the rebound rod goes through peened over half shut on one side and alittle bit on the other. changed the fluid to 5 wt and test. It was softer but deflected still bad. We pulled apart again and found the valves rough and half shut, so we cleaned out the burrs and made the ports uniform, made the pivot thinner, and removed more compression shims. again retest on the trail and still bad. there was too little rebound and a HORRIBLE spike at times and not so bad others. Now the third time apart. We added more rebound shims and pulled apart the mid stack. The mid stack had one large shim and like 7 or 8 small thick washers. You could not physically open the valve like that, so we removed all the small thick washers. There were no springs on the parts that go on the end of the rebound rod. so we got some and installed them. The missing springs were what we thought was causing the intermittent spike. We reinstalled the forks and test rode. It was better now but still a spike and now was way too soft. It wollowed around, so I ordered .46 springs for my 210lb weight 235lbs in gear. We got the springs and installed them and added more rebound shims. The next test ride the spike was better but now the fork spring were too stiff (would not compress in corners and rode like a chopper, and the rebound was way too fast still. Now I took the bike to my tuner again and he took the forks 2 more times to get enough rebound in them, removed the pivot on the rebound stack, and I tested them again. Now the rebound is good but the spring rate is too high. He suggested we install 1 stock spring and 1 .46 spring, so that is what we did. Now the last test. This is by far the best it has been. The spring rate is good in almost all conditions now, compression and rebound are ok. Still my rebound clickers are set all the way in. The spike and deflection are still there but they are not too bad to deal with. So this is where i'm at now. I'm confused what Zoke was thinking and the quality control they use. Why does my mildly tuned 05 kx 250 MX suspension work better off road than everyones 2011 GG Zokes. I hope this helps and Don't mean any ill will to GG or Zoke by this post, but this is just my experiance. I would like to thank my tuners patients with this whole ordeal.