ddking said:
I'm not a tech person. However, Traxxion puts a shock absorbing cartridge in each fork. I would assume Race Tech keeps the damper rod in one fork leaving only one cartridge. Two vs one is the reason I would guess Traxxion is maintained to be better. But like I say, I'm not a techie.
I have Traxxion on my Wing and put Race Tech on my Burgman 650. The reason I tried the Race Tech with the Burgman was the cost of the upgrade relative to the value of the bike and because the Burgman has damper rods in BOTH forks.
Race Tech makes Gold Valve for cartridges and a Gold Valve emulator for damping rods. The mod to the damping rod involves drilling extra holes at the bottom of the damping rod to negate the rods damping effect. The so-called "valves" in a damping rod are merely holes drilled into the rod (better described as a tube) near the bottom. This allows the oil to go in and out, but since the holes are fixed such a setup can never be optimized for both high and low compression. So after drilling the extra holes to allow the oil to flow more freely, the rod is reinstalled with a Gold Valve Emulator which sits on top of the damper rod tube and is held in place by the fork's spring. The Emulator has rather large fixed valves (holes) in it, but these are covered by a stack of thin metal shims compressed by a small spring. It is the setting of this spring that allows the Emulator to blow off in a high compression bump.
The Burgman is much improved as, like the Wing, it has saggy front springs and no high compression damping in its stock form. As other's have said one would have to compare head to head on the same bike to evaluate the differences.
My reasoning concerning the Traxxion setup for the Wing was as follows:
Whereas the Burgman had two damping rods, the Wing has a damping rod in the left and a cheap cartridge in the right. If you were to look at an OEM next to an AK20 you would know what I mean. I think there may be some photos posted with this. In any event, I just wasn't crazy about putting a bandaid on both forks on a big, heavy bike and the cost of the Traxxion upgrade relative to the value of the bike made more sense to me. Finally, I planned to ride the Wing for long distances, 2 up under all kinds of conditions and I wanted it to ride as good as I could make it.
In comparing the two bikes, both in their OEM form had the same harshness over high compression bumps. With the retrofit the Traxxion equipped Wing has a much more plush ride than the Burgman, however, one would certainly hope so. I had expected the stock Wing to be more plush, but it was not.
In modifying the suspension of the Wing with an eye on the budget I think there are three reasonable configurations.
Good: Traxxion rear shock and Traxxion or Race Tech front springs.
Better: Traxxion rear shock with Race Tech front springs and emulators.
Best: Traxxion front and rear.