Fork tinkering query:
Rockshox Generation 1 Pike 454 Dual Air, Motion Control, 32mm stanchions, from the before time, in the long long ago. Circa 2009.
Did these forks have the capability of having bottomless tokens fitted?
If so, and even more unlikely, does anyone know the part number/s?
And, even, even more unlikely, how would one go about fitting them?
Thanks.
No they don't
Strictly, the answers are no, n/a and n/a. I'd suggest that because dual air means you can set pressure in upper and lower chamber independently, you have an option to tweak the way the spring behaves by fiddling with air pressure ratios. I haven't attempted it, but it *may* be possible to retrofit a new air top cap from a more modern 32mm stanchioned fork (e.g. Reba, Revelation from a few years back before they went 35mm, SID SL, etc...). Check the threads are suitable before you try and fit it and screw your forks up though...
Can you not pop some oil in the air chamber to increase ramp up
I think the threads are all different now? But there's other tricks you can use like adding grease into the air cylinder to decrease the volume, if they're dual air (which I'm pretty sure they will be) but I had a set of those and I don't remember having any issues with the air spring in that way. Getting the positive/negative balanced well was really vital though (again, assuming dual air)
If memory serves you can fit a later rebound cartridge into these, which'll be the biggest upgrade you can do since rebound was the achilles heel of these forks- probably something from the sektor/next gen revelation range? Can't remember details I'm afraid.
Mine are long gone but Simon at Loco definitely fitted something from a newer fork to improve the damping. Sorry, thats a bit vague.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/rock-shox-black-box-damper-where-from-cost/
Some info in this thread.
Thank you all for the ideas and information!
Do you need to have tokens when the +ve and -ve air are independently adjustable? I'm not sure on the physics of that, but I think it's less important?
But as above, dribbling an extra 10-15ml of oil into the +ve spring and it'll have the same effect as a token.
Just my 2p's worth.
The positive side of the air spring on my 2010/11 Revs have just grease, not sure if the pike is the same. so the above about adding oil may work to decrease the volume. or just put great chunks of grease in....
I've found messing with the negative increases/decreases the initial sensitivity. the more -ve pulls the fork into the travel, with less -ve it takes a good shove to get it going.
I had a set of these. I guess the question is, what are you looking to achieve?
as others have said, you can adjust the ramp up by increasing the positive air and increasing the negative until you hit the right sag. These older forks relied on a decent ramp on the air spring to offer mid support rather than the damper side, which is why when RS changed to a more linear solo air and changed little else, the forks would shoot through travel as there wasn't the compression damper control, unless you managed to get the blackbox DNA cartridge, but that was only marginally better. RTC3 helped, but that didn't come till later...
