Te 310 2012 Fork Oil

Hello,
i wanted to do an fork oil change on my te 310 2012 with the open chamber KYB forks. In the manual they say to use 7.5wt oil, but some people are running 5wt oil and swear by it, what do you reccomend for faster enduro riding, more in the direction of cross country, i dont know whats in them now so i dont have any idea what fork oil i should get, and i dont want to waste the money. I think the 7.5wt would be better for me, what do you think?

Well, it depends.
I was a fast "B", slow "A" rider and rode a lot of rocks on the east coast.
I went with 5wt "01 Kayaba oil and found the performance much improved in all situations except in 2ft sand whoops where it might bottom a bit. I run a 110mmm fork level.

I would go for 5 weight and experiment with 5 to 10 mills more oil.

shit, I'm planning on 2.5wt and maybe 10mm less height. Right now with my open chamber kyb's, I'm at 17 clicks compression (minimum compression on my right fork leg, my left has 18 clicks total- but i match the right) with the stock oil height and viscosity.

my suspension is pretty good actually; but i'd like to get into the middle range of the clickers. BTW, I am not a suspension guru. But when I uncrated this thing, the compression clickers were at 11 or 12- rock solid. I'm not hitting triples.

My clickers are most of the way out on compression my self. A few clicks in.
These forks are actually pretty good stock. Better stock than the stock closed chambers on my 2012 TXC310. I had to have those forks done by WER. They were way to harsh stock for the boulders I ride in.

SAE weight numbers are sometimes meaningless. That 2.5 oil you are going to use is probably a 5W in viscosity

Put the lightest oil you can find in them and they will be much better. I use this Redline oil.

https://www.redlineoil.com/likewater-suspension-fluid

I agree.
I use the Kayaba "01" oil.

Planning on doing this myself sometime soon. When i picked my '13 up last month the PO claimed the suspension was untouched from new. It literally had no sag when I sat my 75-80kg arse on it. Rear preload was all the way up tight, when adjusted properly both static and rider sag checked out, but forks still too hard, wound compression 1 or two clicks from all the way soft and slid the tubes up 10mm to compensate for lack of sag,, actually rode pretty good but still too stiff in the spring im thinking.

Cool.

But this stuff is 2.5 according to their website- so I'm not sure what you mean.

Vis @ 100°C, CSt 2.3

CSt viscosity numbers are completely unrelated to SAE viscosity numbers

Read about it in this excellent description and viscosity charts

https://www.peterverdone.com/archive/lowspeed.htm

But on their site they claim a viscosity of 2.5 so...? ("Extralight-2.5wt is very popular in NASCAR, as well as AMA Motocross")

edit:
my point is: i don't understand your point.

To sum up- I indicate that sometime in the future I'm going to go to 2.5wt oil in my forks. You tell me that viscosity indexes aren't reliable and point me to an oil (the redline water stuff... looks like I'm gonna use it) that claims to have a viscosity of.... 2.5

great.

also, the technical paper (peter whoever) pretty much has the same numbers. So I don't understand what you're trying to tell me?

From the link I posted.

Do not use the SAE (W) numbers.

Use cSt (centiStokes) which are provided for comparison purposes in the charts and usually on the manufacturers website under material data sheet. These are the truly relevant numbers as they can be compared directly, not so with the SAE 'weight' numbers which are often meaningless.

For forks, cSt at 40C is the more useful number as the oil will not get hot like it does in a shock

Anyone care to spoon feed me which one of these oil weights would be the best to soften down the stock '13 forks?
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/...Fork_Oil_Factory_Line__28GB_29.pdf?1492016021

Cant find any info whatsoever on the factory issue Kayaba KHL15-11 SAE7.5 that isn't in Japanese

Go with the lightest one

sure. go with the very light or the light motul. but why do you not go for Zomby Woofs Red Line stuff? I gotta admit, Motul products are considered top shelf but the Red Line suspension oils seems to have a great rep.

btw, ZW: frank zappa?? saw him in '77.

yeah... like I said: I read all that; I got all that; from both sites. [Does SAE even rate suspension oils?]. i think we're talking in circles or i'm missing your point about meaningless "numbers".

I think the SAE ratings allow a (wide) variation in actual measured viscosity (cSt) that does not translate well for light suspension fluids. Gear oil, works fine. Light and extremely light weight oils, not so much. cSt is exact and enables you to make a direct comparison, something the SAE/W numbers do not.

I don't know why it's still used, probably because that's how it;s always been done, but fortunately all the manufacturers make the actual viscosity numbers available

Yes, big FZ fan, saw him a few times also. 77 would have been in his heyday, IMO.

i would but redline is hard to get over here on the arsehole of the world. Apparently they make the best gearbox and diff oils too which i would also use in my car but alas the availability just isnt there.

I agree go with the lightest oil you can get in these forks. I finally put ZW's fav Red Line LW fluid in my revalved forks and noticed a very nice improvement.