i need honest tip for my ongoing problem.
the fork is pretty sensitive and supple ( thanks to titanium coil ) but it seems to dive too much in steep corners braking etc. the coil is medioum strength ( marzocchi doe not offer stiffer coils )81 kg riding weight
so my questions :
1. would changing oil viscosity to 10w (from current 7.5w) made the fork progressive while not ruining the small bump suppleness?
2. does anyone knows if rockshox lyrik coils can be fitted in the marzocchi 55 170mm fork ?

My guess is that you might need to modify the damper to increase slow rebound damping. I suspect that heavier oil might reduce sensitivity, as you’ve stated. And I think a stiffer spring might do this too ?

I thought the RC3s had a good damper already, so perhaps there is no mod available ? I’m mainly thinking of the damper washer-pack mod that can be done on the more basic ATA cartridges (I’ve got 55 ATA2s on my Cove, and they do dive a bit too much, but still ace !)

sag should be OK for a 81 kg rider?

add a few more cc’s oil at a time to the damper side and it will change the spring rate, and a heavier oil would give a bit more LSC too.

do not use the air preload, does it no favours

I put heavier weight oil in my 44 RC3 Tis but did add a wee bit of air preload. I found them to be the most awesome bit of bike it ever.

They do bob a bit but hit a rock garden and they slurp it up

Hi add some air or add some more compression damping. You are the same weight as me and I run with no air and fair bit of compression damping to avoid this.

I had a bit extra oil in mine.

100ml total maybe?

I preferred it as stock tbh, but it would have been good for a heavier rider probably.

Wind the compression damping up a couple of clicks to make that first bit of travel more firm. Maybe try speeding up your rebound if you still feel your packing down the forks. I’m ~85kg and the forks are textbook out of the box, ridden them for 3 years

tomaso – Member
I put heavier weight oil in my 44 RC3 Tis but did add a wee bit of air preload. I found them to be the most awesome bit of bike kit ever.

They do bob a bit but hit a rock garden and they slurp it up

Exactly my experience too.
I run 10 wt oil in my 44s instead of the recommended 7.5 wt. I think it improves them (for a 14st rider).
A tiny bit of air preload helps but you will sacrifice a little of the legendary plushness. Probably only 5 psi or so in mine.
The real art with these forks is getting the compression adjuster right. Keep experimenting.

+1 compression damping adjustment initially, oil thickness or level change if that doesn’t sort it but you’re hardly huge.

In a similar situation here. I actually contacted Windwave yesterday – they’re really helpful. There isn’t a hard spring available for these forks unfortunately.

Echo what most people say here – adding air solves the diving problem but loses sensitivity a bit. Doc here suggests you should be at about 20psi:

Manual

I’ve also found that if you add air to stop the diving, it’s hard to get full travel.

Also worth whacking the mechanical preload on the LH leg up to max before adding air to see if that will help.

Have also heard that changing to 10wt helps or mix 7.5wt and 10wt to get somewhere in between can help.

Good luck!

Adding air to the assist chamber will ramp up the damping as you approach full travel, in a similar way to adding volume spacers in other forks. Won’t affect much until you start taking big hits. Stick it between 0-20psi and play with the rebound

+1 for windwave being awesome

thanks guys. I will pump in 5-10 psi for starters and see if it is still supple enough. ATM i run it already with max coil preload , so theoretically i could decrease preload of the coil as I add some air . if that doesnt help , then i will surely try new oil..