All forked up

The box arrived from Traxxion Dynamics with my supermono forks inside.  Knowledge and experience are wonderful things, but sometimes come at a cost.  Considering what was done in terms of intellectual property and expertise, the cost was fair.  What I discovered was reassuring, as the problem I had with the forks was legitimate, and the solution I paid for was the only one possible -- so I had correctly diagnosed the problem.
As I said in an earlier blog post, I suspected the fork springs as being too soft for me and the bike.  There was some chatter out of corners, and the o-ring on the fork tube indicated that the forks were bottoming quite regularly, not under braking but under compression while cornering... not good.  While an increase in oil level helped, it was a stop-gap.  A book I recently bought about suspension tuning advocated treating spring rates independent from the damping process -- no amount of preload, compression/damping, or oil weight or level was going to adequately compensate for the wrong springs.  I send the forks to traxxion to get an idea of the fork spring rate, and then if necessary install and set up the correct springs for my weight.
The information I got back was enlightening.  The spring rates were a combo -- .55 in one fork, and .82 in another, for a combined weight of only .68.  Most bikes come with between .80 and .90 springs installed, with over 1.00kg springs available in some cases.  So stock, they were miles off.  Traxxion changed the springs out to .80 in both, revavled the forks, and serviced the assembly as well.  They were shipped back to me and they're ready to go back on the bike.
Bike Club reassembly will continue in the new year.  The student and I re-checked the vavles and they are within spec, according to the manual.  Really easy to do, actually, although if a valve is out, then changing the shim is a bit more complicated.
I'm getting some more responses from my sponsorship proposals, so I might get some additional product discounts and suppies for the season.  I'll post more news soon.

Oh yeah, Dave Pearce has been regularly threatening my marriage with tempting photos of some of his cool projects, both current things and past gems...
This is a MUZ factory supermono that my frame was based on...as you can see, the spec sheet and running gear is a tad higher than my supermono...

That's a self-supporting carbon-fibre tail section, and dymag wheels...

Yamaha 660 engine, bored out to god knows what and making copious horsepower.

This might be the leap at Cadwell Park.  Shipped to your door (in North America) for only 6500 pounds.  Go to http://www.tigcraft.com/ for more information.

This is pretty cool as well -- Dave is developing a custom chassis around the Ninja 650 engine.  Has an R6 rear swingarm, linkage, and shock.  Appears to be stock airbox.  Again, a CF tail section and light fuel cell and you'd have a bike to embarrass some 600cc racers!

And the other side -- some airbox tomfoolery possible -- check out the steering stem -- cut away, to perhaps allow a more direct ram air intake into the airbox???