Shopping for suspension

I'm looking to add after market cartridges and a rear shock, so thought to ask few questions.

Among Ohlins/Ktech/Nitron/Bitubo, is there big difference for an amateur track rider (running in the middle of Advance group).

Any of those work with DDC system? Or I would have to forgo it?

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Suspension

If you can out ride the DDC system then change it. If not, don't bother. No aftermarket rear suspension unit or cartridge kit is compatible with DDC.

I have Ohlins NIX kit and a TTX GP shock, Love it. MCT suspension also set it up for me.

Apparently Wilbers make a rear shock compatible with DDC, as well as front fork cartridges (or maybe it was just the fork springs - memory foggy).

This is what I?ve been told by a couple suspension places here who I?ve called to query suspension work (they both heavily advised against just swapping springs for my weight if I want to keep the DDC system and to ?do it properly? by doing the above mods. Quite expensive though.

FWIW.

cobo said:

Apparently Wilbers make a rear shock compatible with DDC, as well as front fork cartridges (or maybe it was just the fork springs - memory foggy).

This is what I?ve been told by a couple suspension places here who I?ve called to query suspension work (they both heavily advised against just swapping springs for my weight if I want to keep the DDC system and to ?do it properly? by doing the above mods. Quite expensive though.

FWIW.

Click to expand...

Yes you're right Wilbers make replacement DDC forks and shocks, most don't bother and 'upgrade' to passive forks when spending $$$'s as its what they know. Saying that I've just spent some time on the Wilbers site and can't figure a real benefit of their fork kit that I didn't get from going to MCT (spending a 3rd of what Wlbers costs)

Re not changing springs, I don't get that advice, I changed and its spot on...


- Alex

Re: Suspension

I definitely can't now.

In fact rear shock seems to work fine for my weight (90kg in suit).

I just keep hearing how everyone complains about OEM forks and praises ohlins/ktech/nitron/bitubo.

RyS1000RR said:

If you can out ride the DDC system then change it. If not, don't bother. No aftermarket rear suspension unit or cartridge kit is compatible with DDC.

Click to expand...

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Suspension

You will always hear people stating how good ?hlins, K-Tech et al are which is hardly surprising. However I am yet to meet anyone outside of MRO / SSTK who is capable of out riding DDC once correctly set up. If you are racing at that level then aftermarket suspension allows for the fidelity of adjustment that you need to be able to make. For fast trackday use its absolutely fine.

Suspension

For perspective Sylvain Barrier was at Snetterton on Monday lapping on a standard DDC equipped S1000RR with Pirelli Superbike slicks fitted doing 1:53s.

The only thing Id throw into this discussion is front end 'feel', this is a personal thing and inspires confidence if you have it and can destroy it if you don't regardless of talent. I didn't have the level of feel on the std DDC set up on my gen3 that I would have like to have had v my gen2 or the Showa front end on my current bike.

DDC Suspension

I do hope BMW upgrade the DDC suspension on the new 2019 S1000RR. Having ridden both the Yamaha R1M and Honda Fireblade SP the ?hlins electronic suspension is far better compared to the Sachs system found on the BMW.

BMW do love to 'go there own way' but if Yamaha and Ducati are supplying Ohlins' top electronic system on their premier models I would like to see it on the next RR especially any HP version.
Having said that Ohlins for OEM can still be pretty basic compared to the dedicated FGRT type of fork kits.

Tbf to BMW they were first to market with the sportsbike electronic suspension on the road going HP4, the others have followed so you are comparing tech that was first introduced in 2012/13 to stuff put on to bikes 2016/17. Tech moves very quickly. I expect BMW will have significantly upgraded the ddc for 2019 but we shall see....

True enough

- Alex

soofsayer said:

Tbf to BMW they were first to market with the sportsbike electronic suspension on the road going HP4, the others have followed so you are comparing tech that was first introduced in 2012/13 to stuff put on to bikes 2016/17. Tech moves very quickly. I expect BMW will have significantly upgraded the ddc for 2019 but we shall see....

Click to expand...

Very true, furthermore the BMW DDC system is a true semi-active system, unlike the ?event-based? system from Ohlins.
With DDC the suspension action is monitored and adjusted via a solenoid something like 120 times per second. The damping is adjusted based on throttle input, braking, lean angle etc.

The event based stuff from Ohlins essentially has fixed settings that are implemented based on what section of riding you?re at, i.e. heavy braking after a straight, then corner, then accelerating again. To my knowledge the 2.0 system from Ohlins is essentially a new GUI for suspension adjustment, based on rider feel/experience rather than the traditional compression and rebound adjustments, and a greater number of ?events? such as corner entry, mid corner, corner exit etc.

In my mind the next generation of DDC has come from Kawasaki, with their ZX10R-SE. They are using a Showa BFF setup, which is truly semi-active as in the case with BMW.
The advantages of their system though is that the forks have an internal potentiometer and that the system can make changes something like 1000 times per second.
I strongly suspect this is the sort of upgrade/direction that BMW will have for the 2019 bike, and not the Ohlins setup as per Yamaha, Honda and Ducati.
I wonder if BMW will have electronic preload adjustment for the shock on the next gen RR?

There's little wrong with the passive BFF set up..

?hlins

At this moment in time I would personally still opt for ?hlins electronic suspension if it was an option on the new model.

Rather than go for a std set up (if BMW offer one) and get it modded by K- tech?