I wanted to do something about the front end of my F800 as it's by far the weakest part of the standard bike. It runs a slightly soft spring with bogo damper rod so suffers major dive under heavy breaking and also hydro locks going over sharp ridges at speed. Also there's no pre-load adjustment 
how much was this thing again.
I put on some Ricor Intiminators which take over damping duties similar to the gold valve emulators. The good bit is that you don't have to drill the lower damping rod holes, instead it's valved to use very light 2.5w fork oil which basically nullifies the default damping set up.
The initial measurements showed the default set up was using up too much travel as you'd expect with no adjustment. It was sitting at 46mm of 140mm rider sag, ideal is meant to be about 35mm for that much travel. The Intiminators add 12mm of preload so I just added them without even having to cut the spacer
End result is hardly any dive under braking which makes a massive difference, sitting in to fast sweeping corners is also way more stable as there's no more waiting for it to settle under cornering load so it's also way better in transitions like going straight over empty roundabouts. Sharp edges are handled much better too, the overall ride is smoother but at the same time it sits up in it's travel like it should.
I really can't believe how a bike with this rrp has such a dire front end set up as standard. They should at least offer a kit like this as a dealer upgrade for a few hundred quid.
So for anyone else with a F800 I think this should really be the number one upgrade on your list, don't bother with springs and oil on their own as your not fixing the actual problem.
Next upgrade is going to be to sort out the screen (major buffeting at M way speeds) and put on some modern rubber.
how much was this thing again.I put on some Ricor Intiminators which take over damping duties similar to the gold valve emulators. The good bit is that you don't have to drill the lower damping rod holes, instead it's valved to use very light 2.5w fork oil which basically nullifies the default damping set up.
The initial measurements showed the default set up was using up too much travel as you'd expect with no adjustment. It was sitting at 46mm of 140mm rider sag, ideal is meant to be about 35mm for that much travel. The Intiminators add 12mm of preload so I just added them without even having to cut the spacer
End result is hardly any dive under braking which makes a massive difference, sitting in to fast sweeping corners is also way more stable as there's no more waiting for it to settle under cornering load so it's also way better in transitions like going straight over empty roundabouts. Sharp edges are handled much better too, the overall ride is smoother but at the same time it sits up in it's travel like it should.
I really can't believe how a bike with this rrp has such a dire front end set up as standard. They should at least offer a kit like this as a dealer upgrade for a few hundred quid.
So for anyone else with a F800 I think this should really be the number one upgrade on your list, don't bother with springs and oil on their own as your not fixing the actual problem.
Next upgrade is going to be to sort out the screen (major buffeting at M way speeds) and put on some modern rubber.
