Special Stuff Required

Oh, look.
It's one of the guys who are selling their nice bikes on Craigslist.
Hope he's not the same guy who sold me my forks.

I've told you all about my Smart Performance-modified forks which have their Phase 4 valving done to their internals, all in the name of making the forks absorb smaller bumps better while still being able to take big hits without feeling too soft.


In other words:
The best of both extremes.
That's the philosophy, anyway, and they do a good job of that.
The down side of the Phase 4 way of doing things is that the guy who runs the show at Smart Performance has decided that not only does the valving inside the forks need to be modified, but the fork oil, itself, needs to be changed.
Changed to a proprietary concoction that he calls 215.vm2.k5.
Seriously.
That's what he calls it.
On top of that longish and hard-to-remember name for his fork oil, it comes in three flavors:
SPI-3, SPI-4, and SPI-5.
My Phase 4 valving needs the SPI-3 version, and since I've decided to disassemble the forks in the near future in order to double-check their assembly, I ordered some of this special stuff from the guy at Smart Performance yesterday.



Honestly, I'm not saying that his claims of this oil being the cat's meow and this oil working noticeably better than the stock Kayaba oil my forks originally came with as being completely untrue, but I do think it's a drag having to use his and only his special oil.
The only place I know of where to get it from is from the guy, himself, out in California, so I went ahead and ordered enough for 2 fork oil changes, with a bit extra in case of any spillage.



Why do I want to take the forks apart and monkey around with them?
The total end-to-end length of the Phase 4 forks is about 5mm shorter than the stock forks, and the top 10mm-or-so of the fork stroke seems to have more stiction (sliding friction) than the stock fork.
Naturally, I'm wondering if this is a normal side effect of the Phase 4 modifications (I'd hope not), of if the forks were simply put together incorrectly by the home mechanic who installed the Phase 4 parts (which is supposedly the same guy who sold them to me).


I feel that if I want to put my wonder to rest, I'm going in.
Not a big deal because I've disassembled the forks on a lot of the bike I've owned.
I'm not skeered. :)



Off to jerk,
-John