Anyone with any honest recent Fox shock experience?

hoov165x said:

Romaniacs top ten were on air forks because the riders were on KTM or Husky and they had the choice of AER 48 or Xplor. Thats all those brands have. Faced with the choice of the crappy XPLOR fork I would have chosen AER as well. The fact is we went down the air road in the ‘70’s, went down it again recently over the last five plus years, and now all the bike manufacturers are going back
to springs again. When the manufacturers went air again, I thought “oh no, they didn’t learn their lesson the first time”. Or, some ****ing marketing genius is at it again. I race on a KYB PSF2 air fork, and I can tell you it sucks ass. One spring conversion and $1100 later it works well. Don’t get me started on this air thing. It has it advantages of course, but they don’t outweigh the spring option.

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You forgot about that thing called the Cone Valve they have the option to use:face-icon-small-win The AER 48 gets pretty decent reviews by the bike mags compared to other forks regardless of being air or spring. I like mine better than a few other forks I've ridden, which is not a great amount I will admit. It's no secret KYB and Showa were not as successful at getting air to work well.

boondocker97 said:

You forgot about that thing called the Cone Valve they have the option to use:face-icon-small-win The AER 48 gets pretty decent reviews by the bike mags compared to other forks regardless of being air or spring. I like mine better than a few other forks I've ridden, which is not a great amount I will admit. It's no secret KYB and Showa were not as successful at getting air to work well.

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I think that's the tricky thing. A coil spring is a coil spring. More or less the same across the board.

Air spring is not an air spring. There is more design/engineering that goes into these than even some dampers at this point.

...so just like saying "oil damper" means basically nothing as to how it works, so too does "air spring".

Some are good. Some are bad. Its not universal. That's what I'm trying to say.

Hey Jeff, any input on raptors new shock? I had a chance to play with one at haydays and seems like it's pretty bad ass! Then again it was 1 shock in a booth lol.

880summitxrs said:

Hey Jeff, any input on raptors new shock? I had a chance to play with one at haydays and seems like it's pretty bad ass! Then again it was 1 shock in a booth lol.

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Raptor makes good stuff. Lets just start there. Top notch fab work and solid engineering.

I know when they brought a few of their new athletes on board it really helped them progress their stuff from a tuning perspective. They were good at tuning for comfort, but left a lot on the table when it came to performance. I know they spent piles of time with their athletes to hone in something everyone was psyched on. To be really honest, this is where Fox was falling short. Good technology, but their coil stuff (specifically on the Doo) was a ways off from a tuning perspective. That added guys like Tom to the picture to get it right.

Raptor's new technology really isn't that new from a technological standpoint. I think what they are doing is valving things fairly aggressively but then using a position sensitive (not speed) to do some of the lifting later in the stroke.

In a way, this is what I'm suggesting someone can do with air, they are just doing it with oil.

Damping is generally speed sensitive (and position to a lesser extent) whereas springs are position sensitive (and air actually is speed sensitive to a lesser extent)

It gets tangled up...fast. Lol.

Either way, anyone who says fox is garbage, Raptor is where its at is just a silly as someone who says Raptor is garbage, Fox is where its at.

Tuned correctly, I'd happily run either.

All I know is, I can't wait for Fox to make sled shocks with their RVS and twin tube technology (air or coil). The X2 is flat out amazing on a mountain bike, in my experience. I'd probably get the air version when they come out.

tdbaugha said:

All I know is, I can't wait for Fox to make sled shocks with their RVS and twin tube technology (air or coil). The X2 is flat out amazing on a mountain bike, in my experience. I'd probably get the air version when they come out.

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Yeah, Ohlin's makes some twin tube stuff (I think) for sled application. Crazy expensive and I'd doubt its tuned well from the factory.

Anyway, I'm not sure why they haven't "blown up" (made bigger) an X2 and applied it to other sports yet...

treeboy said:

It’s is complete logic bigger stantions or larger shock shaft is more stiction due to more surface area.

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Depending on the shaft coat …. and the DRAG COEEFICIENT OF FRICTION for a given material this may or may not be rue.

But generally the larger the surface area the less force it may take to move it because of galling ang adhesive forces of stiction

Move a pallet on a few beams then move it on plastic sheets on a flat surface. Larger surface area and slippery material


This is not to confuse with rolling resistance … which is why trains travel on steel to steel vs a less efficient rubber on rock.


But usually the shafts have some form of Teflon coating and that scan be more slippery than say steel or aluminum..

Mathematically the larger coated Teflon shaft (given no external forces like dirt in the shaft seal) will slide with less force OR stay in place with less force.


The larger shafts allow among other variables to have less internal pressure to keep the shock inflated and less plastic deformation to the seals.


JMHO and the LAWS of PHYSICS


https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2004/GarvinTam.shtml

BTW and off topic … yesterday was the first day of AUTUMN

Unrelated to this shock debate subject. If you get Fox's for your sled, get them through a reputable 3rd party who can set them up. From what I am seeing the spring/valving on them from the factory is pretty weak. Seen this on Cat and Doo models. I'm 160# and have no issue blowing through them on the 3rd settings on the 1.5 QS3R's.

The tech is there, just super generic calibration wont make anyone happy.

I rode Cat for years. Switched to Doo last year and will never ride an air shock sled again. Out here on the east side of the country they require constant attention due to temp changes through out the course of a riding day. I found d myself just dealing with the way it rode at the moment because I was tired of making adjustments. Just my opinion

Summit74 said:

Yes the 17 QS3 coil was soft! They had 80lb springs stock on the front shocks. 18’s were valved different and had 100 lb spring stock. I added the 100 lb spring this past season and it made a huge difference. Even fox admitted they screwed up, they upgraded springs and valving free for people that had MY17 QS3 if you mailed them in. I would definitely call Tom’s if your going to go fox again.

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Devil what this guy said. I bought a set of QS3s last Jan. I got the 17 fronts and 18 rears. Sigh. The rears really worked well. I like to fiddle with shocks and have owned a LOT of aftermarket stuff over the years on all 4 brands of sled. I set the knob on 2 and the stock torsion springs on 4 and loved it right off the bat. Super happy with the rears. The 17 fronts were way to soft for me, didn’t figure out the dif between 17 and 18 shocks for almost the whole season. You can see how much thicker the 18 spring is if you get them side by side. I’ll be sending them back for the updates, didn’t know you could do that. Thanks Summit74.