Expert X Softness bar - Increasing droop travel

[bjowett]

I'm thinking about increasing the travel of the X. In order to get some of this travel, the softness bar would need to be extended. I under the basic function of it, can anyone see any negatives that can't be overcome?

 

[LazyBastard]

The softness adjustment isn't going to increase your travel because it mounts to the rail well behind the shocks. What it WILL do is reduce front-to-back coupling, which will cause the skid to tilt up more against bumps, reducing the impact against the shocks and making it "softer", hence "softness bar".

 

[bjowett]

LB, the shocks and the bar limit travel. The Floats I have installed give an extra inch of travel over the stock Kayabas. At full droop with the softness nut on full soft, the shocks top out and nut hits the draw bar. With longer shocks, the nut would hit the drawbar and attempt to tilt the front of rails down (until the limter straps come into play) which as we know would be quite bad. A longer bar and shocks could give more droop, and more potential softness.

I'm curious how a damper/shock would help or hurt the coupling. I asked some time ago about the X skid on the Hawk and why the 600 and up no longer uses the drawbar and has replaced it with a shock, but have not found the post with the replies explaining it and why it doesn't work for regular sleds. I would think controling the rate of coupling, along with when it happens, would have not benefit... but I could be wrong.

 

[LazyBastard]

You would have to go both longer bar AND longer STRAPS in order to get a real increased travel. You would not want to achieve this by lowering the softness nut, but would want to increase the length of the bar ABOVE the transfer nut. This would keep the same range of front-to-back and back-to-front coupling. Remember what I said in the other thread about hooking your track windows....

 

[bjowett]

... the nut would hit the drawbar and attempt to tilt the front of rails down (until the limter straps come into play) which as we know would be quite bad...

I mentioned the hooking ^

Hmmmm. I guess I'll hoist it up and try a few things.

Thanks.

 

[LazyBastard]

Then remember that the rails pivot. You need to aim for where the rails CAN go, rather than where they seem to go *most of the time*. That means that if you extend the drawbar to keep it from hooking, it can still hook on a tail landing.

 

[bjowett]

Cool, makes sense. I might place some small wheels at the the rail tips when I get around to this.

 

[LazyBastard]

Try to get the shocks completely figured out first. Then everybody else can start with them without needing to worry about the relationship between your different modifications.