It's becoming increasingly popular to re-valve and respring standard production forks. In view of the slight vagueness of the Yamaha R1 forks we thought we'd try modding them to see what the effect was.

First stage it to buy the Ohlins kit - valves, springs and oil. Then get your hands on a spring compressor and holding plate, otherwise you'll damage the forks trying to get them apart and you'll never get 'em together again.

The basic fork components - damper cartridge is still in the stanchion. Strange tools at the top are the spring compressor and holding plate.

Before you take the forks off the bike, back off the spring preload and loosen the cap nuts - they can be bloody tight and the yokes are a safer way of gripping than having to trap the fork tube in the jaws of a vice.

Holding plate doing its thing

Undo the fork cap and drain the oil. Using a strongish friend and the spring compressor mounted on the spacer tube, compress the spring to reveal the locknut and then slide the holding plate under the nut. Now you can remove the fork cap, spacer and spring.

Pull the main fork tube off the stanchion, taking care not to damage the dust and oil seals. It's worthwhile replacing the fork seals while the forks are stripped.

Now a slightly tricky bit. At the base of the fork leg is a recessed allen bolt which secures the cartridge. This is often a bugger to remove as the cartridge turns around with the bolt - use a hammer air drill to spin it off.

Once the bolt is off, gently withdraw the damper, covering yourself with a generous amount of fork oil in the process. Be a bit careful here, 'coz what you've now got in your hands is a very expensive bicycle pump full of oil, so start waving it about and pumping the tube in and out and you'll cover your bike, garage and helpful friend with jets of 'orrible fork oil. So point it into a drip tray and pump the oil out in a more considerate fashion.

Prize off the spring seat ring to expose the castellations so you can use a C spanner to unscrew the damper tube, holding the outer tube with the compressor gizmo, as shown in the photo on the right. Be careful to support the tube and don't bend it! There's a lot of fairly feeble light alloy here, so it's easy to damage things.

With the gizmo still in place, unscrew the compression
damping assembly from the bottom of the cartridge tube.

Withdraw the cartridge tube and you should have something which looks like the photo on the left.

The rebound damping control assembly is screwed onto the end of the tube. Use the fork cap and locking nut at the other end, lock 'em up tight and then hold them while you unscrew the rebound assembly. Once it's off, the needle and spring are inserted into the tube and the new valve assembly screwed on.

On the R1, we found that the damper rod was now too long, as the needle projects into the tube, and we had to trim 20mm off the rod. If you have to shorten the rod, make sure you are completely sober and measure everything at least six times before cutting.

Unscrew the retaining nut from the compression damper assembly and remove the shims and valve. Our new stuff came on a tie wrap - the components are in order so make sure you don't cut the tie and then drop 'em all over the floor! Put the various shims and the valve on in the required order and secure them with the supplied locknut.

Now put everything back together and fill up with oil. We used a 110mm air gap with the spring out, but you'll have to check the best setting for your bike. Springs are 9½ pounders, but may need varying if you're a fat bugger.

Initial impressions? Damping is more progressive and the range goes right from super-plush to hard as nails, with good control of the front even on the softer settings. A blast over to Nurburg via the Ardennes and a couple of dozen laps of the 'Ring showed that the forks work well. Mind you, Scott Ingram on a bog stock '99 R1 was still quicker ... so fancy forks can't make up for crap riding!

The rebound valve on left comes assembled - the needle sits in the cartridge tube and regulates the rebound damping. The compression bits are in order on the tie wrap - don't get the shims out of order!

As with many things in life, improvements can be made. Take my CBR1000RR5 for instance. Good old Honda, they start to use an electronic steering damper gismo that gives me no end of trouble so I replace it with a conventional steering damper and immediately notice huge improvements, case in point. The same has been carried out by the long term tester CBR1000RR6 in Superbikes magazine too, so it would appear all is not well with the damper or it's a case of personal preference? Mine was purely damper related. I notice too that the CBR600RR is now fitted with one of these electronic gismos, but a much smaller and lighter version and also tucked away in the head stock, so I hope this is better than the one I had??

Since changing the steering damper, the front end of my bike has been (literally) transformed, but it can be improved further still, only this time with improvements to the suspension. As with all bikes the standard suspension they come with is a compromise by the factory, standard suspension has to cater for the lightest rider to the heaviest rider and also take into consideration pillion passengers. Therefore, regardless of what a manufacturer states or claims in the PR blurb, the suspension they fit to their bikes is built to a budget and mass produced, so this naturally compromises the quality and therefore range of accurate and worthwhile adjustment. It keeps the overall cost of the bike down too, very important that. Examples of this are seen with the many bikes, take the Yamaha R1 or the new Duke 1098, if you want one with PUKKA suspension you have to buy the R1 SP or the 1098S, therefore another 2-3 grand on the cost of the bike, it makes sense and I wish I could afford it, but if you only want to change suspension, the cost can be much less than that.

It is true, that adjustable suspension is exactly that, it's adjustable, so you can play around with it and it is worth doing to find out if little changes/adjustments, make little differences, big differences or no difference at all. The new Gixer 750 K6 even has low and high speed compression damping as standard, so Suzuki are helping, but again, it's gonna be a cheaper and nastier version than after market, be it off the shelf or custom built components.

Suspension set up is a bit of a 'Black Art', but I have enjoyed adjusting my suspension from time to time and on my current bike have it just about how I like it, but again, the bike still feels vague when cranked right over, (from reading write ups on new bike launches, this is a trait of all sports bikes it seems), I just can't get the feel that I want from the front end. This is even with good grippy tyre choice being Metzeler Racetecs, having tyres like this still allows you to take the piss a bit, but it would be nice to be able to feel exactly what the front tyre is doing. I have replaced rear shocks on a number of my bikes over the years, but I have never got around to changing the fork set up, I have always settled for that compromise, but have been relatively happy.

However, fork internals conversions are something that a number of our group have done to their sports bikes and it's always for the same reasons, to get rid of the vague feeling at full lean and to have an improved spectrum of adjustments. It also means that the smallest of adjustments to quality suspension do make noticeable differences to road or track riding. Note - only make one adjustment at a time though and try it, before making more.

With the Winter coming I thought it was time to strip the forks out and get them re-valved, re-sprung and whatever else is included. So that's exactly what has been done to them, they have been sent off to MC Techics, (link on links page) to Darren and he has kindly changed everything for me. This now means that I will have K-Tech compression stacks, WP fork springs and revalved rebound damping, including an oil change, this all costs a total 395 quid, but add to that postage and packing. There are cheaper options, but I wanted the best I could get for around that price and this covers all I require.

If you want to go ahead with this improvement for your bike, the info you need to give to MCT is;

i/ Most commonly used road type, for me this is mainly back roads and bumpy roads (I live in Belgium remember), with little track use other than the Ring of course.
ii/ Your overall weight, when wearing boots, leathers, gloves and lid. Be honest and as accurate as you can be, it makes a difference for the spring weight used.
iii/ Pillion or not, but if you do, you could be wasting your time and money, so probably best to call first and see what options there are open to you.

Why did I use MCT? Well, it comes back to KRJ's racing days, he had all sorts of problems getting a proper race set up for his TLR back in his Sound of Thunder days, but he was eventually advised to talk to Darren, he did and he started to win races. Further to that, Keith got a rear shock for his R1 from MCT and I also bought a WP rear shock for my RR3 Blade from them and the after sales service I received regarding set up etc. was second to none, and when suspension is a 'Black Art', this is worth it's weight in gold.

One other thing Darren has changed for me too is the compression adjustment screws, (I didn't ask him to), it appears that Honda have fitted a rather unsatisfactory compression adjusting screw to the RR4 and RR5 Blades (can't comment on previous models), the problem is that it has a flat end to what should be the pointy end and according to Darren this can cause 'choking' of the oil, therefore affecting the compression damping on bumpy roads. As Darren refers to bumpy roads, this suggests the high speed damping quality is impaired. The CBR1000RR6 is not the same, it has a much more tapered adjustment screw, but again, it backs up the point of what I have written above, low budget and mass produced, equals low quality.

There will also be a WP rear shock coming some time in the near future, but I wanted to experience the full effect of the forks conversion first.

Sunday, and the forks go back on the bike - well, there isn't much else to do this time of year. As my tyres are a bit past it and I have ordered new ones, plus I am considering some new front discs, I decided I would leave the front wheel out and complete the job in a couple of weeks when I'd brought the tyres back from the UK and then do the test ride. I haven't located a cost competitive tyre supplier in Belgium yet, so continue to use FWR, excellent deals on Rennsports right now!

However, best laid plans and all that …… the forks were back in place in no time and the front wheel just had to follow. After all, it doesn't take long to take a front wheel out does it? Besides that, the sun was shining, the roads looked to be fairly dry and I just had to know whether my investment in the front forks was worthwhile, or at least get an idea.

Now, I had been advised not to expect too much in the way of first impressions, as upgrading fork internals is a more subtle change than one might expect, but, all I can say is that the standard front forks (or perhaps my settings) were so bad that I couldn't help but notice a vast difference almost immediately. There was none of the familiar patter over small consistent bumps in the road that I used to transmit it way up through the bars, the front end seemed to soak them up easily enough, leaving a nice plush, progressive but firm enough feel from the high speed compression damping, so I was pleased about that. The low speed compression damping when braking hard felt fine too and also very controlled on the rebound with out feeling too much travel, I could probably take a turn out of the rebound, but I won't yet, I need a longer test ride for that, so presently all settings are as Darren left them:

Compression: 2 turns out.
Rebound: 2 turns out.
Pre-load: 10 turns in, leaving 30mm of static sag.
Oil: 5 wt Motul, level 100mm.

When tipping into a bend I didn't notice too much of a difference, but I think much of that may be down to a front tyre that is way past it's best, and probably myself erring on the side of caution because of cold roads and being a bit damp in places, but on the whole, I am well chuffed with the results.

The only downside? Yes, there is one. By God, do I need a rear shock to compliment the front end, but that will definitely have to wait, unless of course anyone would like to donate towards it for me, no harm in asking is there?