• Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Sweden - About 1988 and older

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Race tech fork valves?

Bigbill

Bigbill

Husqvarna
Pro Class
I never did forks before, but to clean the parts and install new seals. What do race tech fork emulators do?
Are they worth it?
 
Can work after much playing with. Idea is to control oil flow for smooth fork action. Most find these harsh and not effective.
I have them working well and feeling really good

If riders on this site tried them years ago race tech did not have the spacer that sets at top of damping rod. this helps oil flow each way
this is big for users who did not get this spacer. Odd all the extra holes you drill in damping rod really are the standard holes in the 86 87
rod. Have additional holes in rod for more oil flow.

Work well - with less oil. 6" from top and 5 wt oil. Must use lighter small spring 3 turns in on gold valve. Also on valve drill the additional indented
holes for oil return.

Yes riding on same day with modern forks and hopping back on these. I had less harshest and really enjoyed on these forks and less arm pump.
They can work great.
 
work better on anything else brandwise more so than on a a Husky ....even with the spacers. husky flow is so different than a regular fork
 
The emulators act like a cartridge fork in that there is an adjustable shim stack that controls the compression and oil flow. Significant improvement on a damper rod fork but I have them in a set of Betors. Never tried them in a Husky fork.
 
I run those later forks. No not really, just because ( my impression only ) the oil pressure to me is forced up
and the valve on top controls the flow. The check valve on bottom seems something like that but really
is opening the damping rod hole in bottom. Down here always seems to be so full of goop around this check valve.

And of course the oddest is additional floating valve in a cage deal. Want to install HVA 's hard brass replacement here.

I take out the Husky check valve at bottom to open holes. Also drilled one additional hole in rod higher up. I was advised on this did not pull out of thin air or from somewhere else.
Whole purpose is (from better people with real knowledge shared to me ) is to open the flow of oil as damping agent. No hydraulic lock is wanted
and control the extreme flow for smooth fork action.

Oh bad action before from using these is oil was not returning back down
into lower fork. Could not get past the old valve.

I am getting that now. Please note most all feedback from me is on the 87 88 damping rods and forks
 
I seen the design of the tall elevator buffers. There like the forks somewhat. If the elevator goes into over speed which is highly unlikely. The piston on the buffer shaft goes in the tube which has oil in it. There are lots of holes in the tube in the upper section but less holes as it goes lower in the oil. This slows down the speed. I guess the forks are similar. I never took a close look at them.
 
Are there any articles on how to set up these 40mm forks for better performance so everyone understands the needed changes? I'm sure for the ones who compete in the vintage, post vintage and modern classes these fork mods would be important. Plus your rider on weekends too.
 
I am sure the Husky Products damping rods I found in my 86 400WR forks are an improvement. I myself seeing I have unfettered access to reverse engineer these rods, I can use the hole specs on any set of damping rods to meet the flow characteristics, not just Husqvarna.

The Dirt Rider test of the 86 400 Cross Country used the Husky Products rods in the forks and noted vast improvement in the fork action.
 
I have an extra set of '86/400 forks sitting here. I have three sets of 85/86 500cr forks also. I might be ok fork improvement wise. We don't know if we don't ask. Would using the race tech valves be even better?
 
So Bill I think we already answered your question. Again - yes some gains can be had. Must play to get to work. Some never to get it to work and
waste the cost of investment.
Stock forks can work also well. Joe answered your question too. More gains for other brand of forks than Husky for gold valves

Now final answer for you. Husky John one of are moderators here for this site has raced my gold valve equipped forks at Unadilla
says he liked them and worked well. And he raced his bike same day his forks worked well and the action worked great as i watched
them work against the terrain. Thats the answer both can work well. I like my fork action today , don't get forearm pump, pretty good feel.
I seen some gains - I like the 87 forks because also has top out spring.

But also have 44kg springs.

You have to find out. We gave you answers.
 
the later 87 88 forks are clearly an advantage over the generic 83 - 86 40 mm forks.
you can use cr dampers in WR forks and install a top out spring.

you can fit the gold valves...ive heard results from " Amazing" to "I don't know why I bought these" for the husky forks.

Me? mine are bog stock std with 10 wt oil... im going all out tho and replacing the oil with 15 wt..stay tuned:eek:
 
I think I have the 87 forks too. I went on a fork buying spree when they were affordable. I figure I'd have them on the shelf if needed. I went after the front disc brake forks and rims.

Thanks for the fork help. I guess feeling them out and playing with different oil weights is last. I think I'm going to take one bike and tweek it out with some options. The cr500. Let the son ride it.
 
no shim stack....it is an adjustable check valve adjusted through spring tension.
Click to expand...
I got an off-brand that uses a shim stack instead of race tech's patented valve. The rest is the similar.
 
They really improved the Betor forks on my Triumph. Probably the more primitive the forks the bigger the improvement
 
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