Strika wrote:davezx9r wrote:i'll give these guys a plug, terry knows his stuff.. he did a gold valve job on my old blue zx9 (which ended up going to I-K a few years back), and recently he did a gold valve job on the gixxer's forks and set up the suspension to match the new ohlins rear shock that i got as well... and the bike's like a razor now, even more so than when new.. so yeah, the guys at shock treatment do a good job.
the missus liked what they did to my gixxer so much she's planning on taking her gixxer thou K6 to shock treatment sometime to overhaul her suspension.
Terry may well be very good, but personally I reckon those gold valves are a crock of shit!! From what my suspension guy in Melbourne tells me, a lot of the modern suspension has very very very good quality internals, and all they need is a respring and revalve usually to make em work properly. Every top racer I have spoken to about gold valves reckons the same!!!! FWIW I would be more inclined to have it done properly than fitting gold valves!
A few facts about suspension.
They are called gold valves because they are anodised aluminum coloured gold, these were first introduced by Race Tech so they could patent them. Other manufacturers followed suit. The main difference with these valves are the size of the apertures, these let the oil flow far more quickly once the shim stack has been actuated, hence the plush feeling with modified suspension.
The quality of the standard valves, shims and springs in most current Japanese bikes are crap, but having said that they are better than they were 10 years ago.
You mention a revalve and respring, other than the oil there really isnt much else to change.
While on the subject of oil use the best quality fork oil you can get, and change it at least every 10,000 K's.
Race Tech usually dont change the rebound valves and shim stacks, I suggest if you are going to get suspension work done, have both the compression and rebound valves and shim stacks replaced. The cost is a little more but the end result is worth it in my opinion.
Neil
