Trying to get my slants set up properly for a while now, and it’s doing my head in! They’re meant to be the 160mm DLA (travel adjust version), but at the correct pressure (~90psi) for about 30% sag, the forks aren’t fully extended, there’s about 12mm snuck away under the dust wiper.

Also, under HARD compression, I’m losing about 20mm of travel at the top. To get the pressure low enough to use this travel, I’ve got to lower it to almost minimum pressure (about 50psi) and about 60% sag – obviously… something’s going on here!

It seems like it’s got ridiculous ramp up under compression. And it seems like there’s almost a negative pressure ‘sucking’ the forks down like it’s got too much in a negative air chamber, but I’m pretty sure it’s a solo air system.

The travel adjust works and lowers it 30mm… but at this point, my 160mm burly forks are essentially reduced to about 120mm of useful travel without even using the travel adjust!

Any suggestions what the problem may be, or if anyone’s had similar experiences?

Mine do pretty much the same. If they’re set to 25 – 30% sag i find them really divey under braking with very little mid stroke support, yet I don’t think I’ve ever managed to use the last 20mm travel, even when things go wrong on jumps/drops.

It seems like the air spring has a massive ramp up, it feels like a pair of pikes with half a dozen tokens in.

Currently thinking of trying to replace the DLA cartridge with a standard air spring. Or just replacing them.

That’s basically EXACTLY what I’m planning on doing. Got a friend selling some Pikes that I’m considering. It’s a shame because they feel quite good on the whole, but I know what you mean about the mid-travel support. I’m not sure if this is an issue with the DLA version or with the fork in general though…

Have you measured the slider surface? Sometimes they have “dead” travel and are never meant to come up to crown. You might find you have 170mm of slider (although that sounds like a lot). I rarely use all the travel on my 160mm pikes, when I have it’s been proper “uh oh, here we go” moments.

Sucked down travel could be something to do with negative pressure in the fork lowers, try slipping a zip tie between the seal and the stantion to equalize the pressure. Or it could be air leaking into the negative spring… Tried letting them down and pumping them back up?

Like JackHammer said. The Slants will stop 10mm short of the top of the stanchion.

Maybe too much oil in the top of the air leg? You can add oil the same as a token in other forks. I think there is supposed to be 5ml in there (maybe 10ml?). If there is much more than that, is could make the fork excessively progressive. But I assume you’d need a lot of extra oil to make it as bad as you describe.

Have looked into it before, the DLA is a drop in cartridge (looks a bit like a damper cartridge) in the fork leg so has a very small volume within the air spring.

The standard air spring doesn’t seem to suffer the same issues.

See towards the bottom of the page here http://forums.mtbr.com/shocks-suspension/official-xfusion-rl2-fork-service-tuning-thread-910996-6.html

Definitely not in the damper side. After taking out all the air and compressing it’s getting pretty much full travel (about 8mm or something from the top). Just had the lowers off too for a quick lowers service and when reinstalling followed all their measurements for lowers oil. Additionally, when rebuilding them, equalized the pressure in the lower leg.

I gave up on mine and punted them (normal spring). They were either massively divey or so inactive that they could make my vision blurred, seemed impossibly to find a sweet spot. Don’t think being skinny helps at all though

I can confirm from being a bit of a fatty… that doesn’t help either! I’m sorely tempted to sell them and get some pikes… They may be fine for someone who’s less aggressive, but need something with a bit of support!

Just a thought but have you looked at getting an HLR damper? I’m not sure if it’ll fit but would be cheaper than replacing the full fork. I’ve got slants with HLR and there’s plenty of adjustment – I’m well happy now I’ve got them dialled.

So I’ve got a bit of an update on this…
I spoke to upgrade bikes about the problem, and they came back extremely quickly. After speaking to the workshop they’ve said it sounds like the air spring may actually be damaged, and to send them in to them. They’ve said if it’s damaged, they’ll change it out for a solo air F.O.C!! Now I don’t know if that’s just because I’ve got a pre-existing relationship with the guys, if there’s a known problem with the DLA spring and it’s cheaper doing it that way than a full recall (if it’s not actually dangerous, just annoying) or if they’re customer service is just out-bloody-standing!

Either way – it’s given them some massive kudos points in my book, and certainly puts them in high esteem if it comes to buying some new forks in the future!

I must agree on the thumbs up for Upgrade. My Slides have all sorts of issues but they have really done they’re very best to help out.

I have a slant on my old bike I lend to friends. Recently I found the airspring kept loosing pressure and in turn pressurizing the lowers. I’m hunting down info to see what the problem is. But I thought I’d throw add to this thread as I was having the same bad luck with my dla. I sent it to Xfusion (back when they had a service center in the states), they told me they could fix the problem temporarily but it would come back and that the recommended i allow them to change it to the normal airspring free of charge. So obviously there is a design flaw that was not recalled. At that time (2015?) they did not offer any new forks with a dla feature, again pointing to known issues.