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Why cant they get parts?
Typically tuners want to learn about other designs and will work on them..not take them out and put mids in which would mean a change to the other valving as well..
I dont know myself so im not saying you are wrong just with what ml has said and my questions. Any clarification?
They cant get parts because parts to tune cone valve are extremely expensive and WP does a crappy job at keeping inventory and distribution.
You can "tune" your way right out of what it does well to solve other issues.
A MASSIVE issue with the cone valve is using a coil spring to control every aspect of it's function. This requires highly precise manufacturing of the spring - and even still you would need to dyno every single spring - and fine tune it's preload on a fork by fork basis to get it identical.
It's the 64 thousand dollar question - what damping curve do you want and why. What positives and negatives will that have...
I am a huge fan of digressive blow off type damping if it can be done right. But it has plenty of draw backs that have made a normal shim type mid valve stick around for over 25 years in factory racing.
The sad part its consumers just dont understand what they have - isn't far off what the top guys do in technology. It's countless hours of testing - and creative engineers/staff that make all the difference.
So some fast guys are running OEM forks...with just this in them? What about other internal parts? Special coatings and so forth?
dont forget also, the base valve- this is the big part with a 6 inch or so spring that you remove when changing the oil in the inner chamber- this also has the basevalve stack- as the damper rod goes through the stroke, it dispaces oil volume that is passed through the base valve.... again, it has a checkplate for the return rebound stroke.
to my knowledge, the cone valve replaces the midvalve shim stack.
A cone valve allows you to have a stiffer fork until a high enough strike speed where it is softer than a normal fork utilizing a "mid speed valve" with a shim stack.
A cone valve is an attempt at a design that feels stiff/firm but supple. AKA under braking and jump faces it feels firm.
On high speed strikes it feels softer than a fork that feels AS firm on the other hits.
A cone valve would be the exact opposite of "soft at the top of the stroke" for most situations.
In reality - a highly digressive damping curve that provides the SAME total damping for any given bump AKA wheel response distance will be the same - actually produces MORE force at the handle bars than a fork that is normal. However this force builds gradually and doesn't produce a "spike" felt at the handle bars.
A good analogy for a cone valve is this - imagine trying to catch an egg thrown at you without breaking it.
It breaks at some known force (a deceleration rate) and rule 1 is dont break the egg.
Thusly - to slow it down without breaking the egg - you will need some minimum distance to keep that force below it's threshold.
Now let's make this a perfect world where you can have your cake and eat it too.
The other rule is to stop it in the shortest distance possible.
Lastly - the egg can be thrown at different speeds.
This last factor provides a challenging problem. With a constant speed egg - the solution to the question is quite simple.
But the variable egg speed makes it really challenging. A cone valve tries to limit the peak force initially by "bleeding off damping" then catching up with lots of damping later.
So example speed 10 force 5. Speed 1 force 4.
A conventional mid valve with shims tries to provide a relatively linear force vs speed. More speed on the egg - more force you provide but in a linear manner. speed 10 - force 10. Speed 1 force 1.
Old school forks (like really really old) were non linear. They provided more force with highest velocites - to a v^2 rule. AKA speed 10 force 50. Speed 1 force 0.5. These are basically worthless and gone for good reason.
On the cone valve a negative is when you hit it hard enough to be OUTSIDE it's design range - and the fork blows through. An example would be over jumping a large rhythm into the next face (common in sx - even intentional). This will cause it to bottom (or damn near bottom depending on it's bottoming control methods) causing massive harshness and unpredictable performance leaving the face.
It would be like catching the egg thrown very fast and only have X amount of space - call it 12 inches like your forks. damping is minimized due to speed and it never slows the egg down
On normal mid valve shim forks - the negatives can be at either extreme of speed. Ultra low speed shaft speeds and it can be too soft - makes it feel mushy.
Ultra high speeds and it feels really really stiff. feels harsh. But it provides maximum safety and predictable performance in over jump or casing situations.
Different piston designs shift the damping curve around sometimes in regions we want. OEMS aren't stupid here.
People don't realize that the reason you bottom you forks on little drop offs - or they feel softish/use large amount of travel - is you dont have any shaft speed so you aren't producing much damping. Like jumping feet first into 3 feet of water.
But they don't bottom or feel soft on a 10 foot drop/jump - because you now have speed built up.
A cone valve would feel stiffer in the little drop - and nice if you want that feel. But on the 10ft drop it would allow you to go further into the pool - maybe good maybe bad.
Pit Row
Are the top guys all running Air or spring CV's or Mid Valve conversiions? On another podcast, one of the guys mentions most guys on WP AIR are running spring internals regardless if they are 48s or 52's.
Is this right?
And that's completely false. If it looks like a spring fork on the outside, it is one on inside. Same with the air. All factory level guys in the US are currently on spring. Cant says for sure for Euros they have been back a forth a little more and last I heard they were testing new versions of the air and loving it but that was a month or 2 ago.
From an aftermarket stance, the lack of parts and how hard it is to get them leads many back to mid-speed valves. Secondly, I haven't run into as many general customers that are as happy with a standard setting in a WP CV fork or liked the settings they got when dealing directly with WP. Tuners like Factory Connection, Race Tech, Powerband, and Enzo have had better success and feedback going back to a mid-speed valve piston.
Root's team had riders getting suspension through factory services and weren't happy with it, so they swapped to an aftermarket tuner who switched the system...AJE Husky the same...along with quite a few of the privateers on CVs that are going through Race Tech now.
So to wrap it up, "take it to the guy who knows the product instead" that's where many started, and weren't happy with the results. I'm not trying to say the system is bad but it does have drawbacks, also my personal experience in testing them with CV and mid-speed valve ended with me preferring one with a mid-speed valve.
In Europe, Nagl had used air the past two years and I think either Anstie or Paulin was on it part of last year as well. Others were on spring.
The 48 CV air and the 52 air are much, much different on the air spring side. The 48 has a positive and negative air chamber, so two to tune...the 52 works option had four chambers that could be adjusted.
Enzo spring kybs and since ive gotten them valved and sprung right for me, oh gawd damm are they good..
Didnt many like psf1 and mxa love the aer?
I do love these tech threads tho anything but gossiping about riders is good for me..
All of the WP tuners yes did that 2 or 3 years ago but none have been for at least the last year or so, expect racetech because they "upsell" to their goldvalves.
Like I said before sometimes it can be more circumstances and relationships than what shim is where. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would tell you shim stacks suck compared to a conevalve. All depends on the quality of the setting/setup. I know plenty people who have taken shimstack kits out of Cone valve forks and gone back to conevalves because they were so unhappy (not cheap to flip back and forth lol).
Ah that's because racetech has changed up their sales pitch. It's a great marketing company I can give them that.
Made a big difference but due a lack of shims i havent fined tuned them, but hey anythings better than a hole in a pipe..
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