GEARBOX
Tested: Elka 20mm Fork Valves
Author: K3 Chris Onwiler
Excellent performance for a nice price
 "I'm really impressed with Elka's 20mm valves. I've been building some very nice setups with them lately." When tuner extraordinaire, Ken Hall, of Superbike Suspension made this statement, our ears perked up immediately. Obviously, it was time for yet another suspension test!
Twenty-millimeter valve upgrades represent the most affordable (and therefore most popular) entry into the world of performance motorcycle fork modification. They also fit the vast majority of bikes used for trackday riding and racing. Elka is a Canadian company, long known for producing high quality suspension to fit racing quads. A few years back, Elka began offering sportbike shocks. We tested one and really liked it. Later, we pitted the Elka damper against a far more expensive Race Tech shock and found the difference to be a mere one second per lap; so small a gap that it would take a very experienced rider to tell the difference. Having already proved to ourselves that Elka offers an excellent performance-per-dollar ratio, we were eager to experience their new fork kit. Our test mule for this project would be the CrankyApe.com Salvage Sweetheart 2006 GSXR 600. Over the past three seasons we've tried four shocks and five fork setups on this machine. Having used the bike for so much suspension testing, we felt that it would provide the best platform for evaluating the performance of these valves. Superbike Suspension built a set of forks for us using Elka compression and rebound valve kits, shimmed to Hall's personal specifications. Ken has installed dozens of these kits and has figured out how to extract maximum performance from them. He also replaced the fork seals and installed springs to suit our tester's rider weight before filling the forks with fresh oil. Because he keeps such careful notes on each customer's settings and preferences, Hall was able to build a set of forks on the bench that were within a half-turn of perfect adjustment on preload, compression and rebound once installed on the motorcycle. This is the mark of a true professional.
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