Front suspension cartridges - Ohlins or Consentino

T

TBW

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Hi all, been reading up on the various front suspension cartridge threads.
Bike is 72 Combat with JPN faring, large ally touring tank etc ; forks have RD400 springs, 1 1/2“ preload and
covenant damper kit. Ridden in a reasonably spirited manner but also used for European tours of a week / 1900 miles.

Question for the wise and experienced: which would you recommend and why ?

thanks much 👍
 
Ohlins! Because I've heard of them. ;)

And because I've used them in the past on several different bikes, most recently on front fork cartridges and fully adjustable rear shock for my BMW R9T. TBF, the other brand you mentioned might be good but, having not heard the name until your post, I would go with Ohlins because I KNOW they are good.
 
Over a period of almost thirty years I've used Maxton for five bikes & have been very happy with the results. They don't just fit adjustable dampers but also custom Delrin bushes & modern oil seals. If your sliders are worn internally they can have them honed back to round & parallel.
 
I don’t believe that Ohlins do a kit. There was a (late) member on here who started doing one but I believe there were issues with the OD of the cartridge being too big to work correctly with the ID of the stanchion.

As others have said, I have also used Maxton many times over the last (almost) 30 years. But they will require your forks.

K-Tech now do a drop in cartridge for Norton forks, they’re sold by Molnar and Norton Race Parts. I’ve not tried them yet (but that‘ll change soon), but have used K-Tech in the past and they’re at least as good as Ohlins.
 
Between Dan Kyle and I, I think we covered the problems with trying to fit Ohlins cartridges into Norton forks pretty thoroughly in these two posts. Essentially, to make it work you would have to bore out the ID of the Norton fork tubes to allow enough clearance that the damping is controlled by the shim stacks in the cartridge instead of by the limited clearance between cartridge and fork tube. Dan and I both looked into possible ways to do so, but Dan died unexpectedly before making any progress, and I gave up after concluding that building tooling to properly bore out the Norton tube only where necessary, while avoiding areas like the lower bushing groove, would be too complex to be worth it.

https://www.ohlins.com/product/nix-22/#&gid=1&pid=1

www.accessnorton.com

Ohlins Cartridge Conversion to Commando Forks?

We've had some discussions on this possibility in another thread https://www.accessnorton.com/NortonCommando/rob-north-framed-commando.30273/page-9#post-492603 so I thought I should start a new thread to deal with it. Dan Kyle brought up the possibility of fitting the Ohlins NIX 22 cartridge...
www.accessnorton.com www.accessnorton.com

The system I was able to make work was to use Honda cartridges, basically copying the package Cosentino does. Full info on my experiences with that are detailed here.

http://www.accessnorton.com/threads/commando-fork-cartridge-conversion.18452/

Don't think K-Tech did a kit at the time. I'll have to take a look at that one.

Ken
 
MexicoMike said:
Ohlins! Because I've heard of them. ;)

And because I've used them in the past on several different bikes, most recently on front fork cartridges and fully adjustable rear shock for my BMW R9T. TBF, the other brand you mentioned might be good but, having not heard the name until your post, I would go with Ohlins because I KNOW they are good.
Click to expand...
Mike, thank you .
 
Matchless said:
Over a period of almost thirty years I've used Maxton for five bikes & have been very happy with the results. They don't just fit adjustable dampers but also custom Delrin bushes & modern oil seals. If your sliders are worn internally they can have them honed back to round & parallel.
Click to expand...
Luckily they’re brand new Norvil proddie sliders so prime for a conversion . Delfina bushes sound a good call 👍
 
Fast Eddie said:
I don’t believe that Ohlins do a kit. There was a (late) member on here who started doing one but I believe there were issues with the OD of the cartridge being too big to work correctly with the ID of the stanchion.

As others have said, I have also used Maxton many times over the last (almost) 30 years. But they will require your forks.

K-Tech now do a drop in cartridge for Norton forks, they’re sold by Molnar and Norton Race Parts. I’ve not tried them yet (but that‘ll change soon), but have used K-Tech in the past and they’re at least as good as Ohlins.
Click to expand...
FE, Thanks much . Wasn’t aware of K-tech but from your comment re external springs it’s not an option
 
lcrken said:
Between Dan Kyle and I, I think we covered the problems with trying to fit Ohlins cartridges into Norton forks pretty thoroughly in these two posts. Essentially, to make it work you would have to bore out the ID of the Norton fork tubes to allow enough clearance that the damping is controlled by the shim stacks in the cartridge instead of by the limited clearance between cartridge and fork tube. Dan and I both looked into possible ways to do so, but Dan died unexpectedly before making any progress, and I gave up after concluding that building tooling to properly bore out the Norton tube only where necessary, while avoiding areas like the lower bushing groove, would be too complex to be worth it.

https://www.ohlins.com/product/nix-22/#&gid=1&pid=1

www.accessnorton.com

Ohlins Cartridge Conversion to Commando Forks?

We've had some discussions on this possibility in another thread https://www.accessnorton.com/NortonCommando/rob-north-framed-commando.30273/page-9#post-492603 so I thought I should start a new thread to deal with it. Dan Kyle brought up the possibility of fitting the Ohlins NIX 22 cartridge...
www.accessnorton.com www.accessnorton.com

The system I was able to make work was to use Honda cartridges, basically copying the package Cosentino does. Full info on my experiences with that are detailed here.

http://www.accessnorton.com/threads/commando-fork-cartridge-conversion.18452/

Don't think K-Tech did a kit at the time. I'll have to take a look at that one.

Ken
Click to expand...
Thanks Ken, lotta info there. Does kinda point at consentino or the Maxtons…
 
I have used the Cosentino units for a while now along with his bushing kit. I like the complete adjustability of these along with his customer service.
Mike
 
Just taking things a step further on spring rating :
believe the original 850 JPN used same fork set up as any other Commando ; given weight and moment of fairing plus forward load via clip-ons should the spring rate be different?
guessing Ken, Fast Eddie and others who’ve raced will shed some light…

cheers for all the input so far. I’ve contacted Chris @ Consentino and Manxtons . JS also been in touch 👍
 
Fork spring rate depends on many things.

Generally things are stiffer on the track due to the use, heavy braking, hard cornering, less importance placed on comfort, etc.

I don’t know how heavy the JPS faring is but doubt it would make a tremendous difference?

You don’t buy a ‘kit’ from Maxton. You send your forks and they come back fully modified, fully rebuilt, and with springs rates set to your and your bikes weight.

They custom make the bushes so they’re a perfect fit for your parts, no stack up of manufacturing tolerances to worry about.

Obviously, this is not the cheap option. The cost of the work will depend on the condition of your stanchions etc.
 
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