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General Discussion / Re: 2013 V7 - Fork Oil Capacity?
« Last post by Kev m on January 13, 2026, 07:00:34 AM »Hey since I'm having a great conversation by myself I wanted to address one more point that was debated here and in other smallblock threads:
"How to measure air gap when setting up a smallblock fork?"
The question is fork tube extended upward of compressed into the lower.
Answer - COMPRESSED into the lower.
Explanation:
As noted earlier after removing the cap, spacer, and spring from each of Kafia fork I compressed the tubes and measured air gap. Even compressed the measurement was greater than the gap provided by the OEM.
Now these forks were factory filled and never leaked so we may want to question the factory spec, but there's no question that the spec must therefore have been to measure compressed. Because if you were to fill it to factory spec with the fork extended you would be using significantly more fluid than you drained.
Oh and to that point, trying to double check myself last night I scoured the usual Guzzi sources looking for info. The one thing I DID find was a post from Todd on Guzzitech. Shortly after draining a set of (then new) Kafia forks back in Dec 2013 he measured ~12 oz / 354 cc of drained oil, which is almost exactly the amount I measured (350 cc) from both of my forks. And the amount that gave a ~160 mm air gap.
I kinda wonder if the factory didn't set up, at least the early Kafia forks, with the same 150 mm air gap they were setting up the Marzocchi forks with in the same period of time.
10 cc could account for the amounts sticking to and wiped off the spacer and spring etc. And damn but wouldn't that sound like something that factory would do. Of course I kinda would have expected Kafia and Marzocchi to just provide the factory with while assembled forks so who knows.
It makes me wonder if that was one of the reasons I didn't hate the front end on that bike even stock when others really complained it was too harsh.
Stay tuned for more reports this spring we're I finally test it out.
"How to measure air gap when setting up a smallblock fork?"
The question is fork tube extended upward of compressed into the lower.
Answer - COMPRESSED into the lower.
Explanation:
As noted earlier after removing the cap, spacer, and spring from each of Kafia fork I compressed the tubes and measured air gap. Even compressed the measurement was greater than the gap provided by the OEM.
Now these forks were factory filled and never leaked so we may want to question the factory spec, but there's no question that the spec must therefore have been to measure compressed. Because if you were to fill it to factory spec with the fork extended you would be using significantly more fluid than you drained.
Oh and to that point, trying to double check myself last night I scoured the usual Guzzi sources looking for info. The one thing I DID find was a post from Todd on Guzzitech. Shortly after draining a set of (then new) Kafia forks back in Dec 2013 he measured ~12 oz / 354 cc of drained oil, which is almost exactly the amount I measured (350 cc) from both of my forks. And the amount that gave a ~160 mm air gap.
I kinda wonder if the factory didn't set up, at least the early Kafia forks, with the same 150 mm air gap they were setting up the Marzocchi forks with in the same period of time.
10 cc could account for the amounts sticking to and wiped off the spacer and spring etc. And damn but wouldn't that sound like something that factory would do. Of course I kinda would have expected Kafia and Marzocchi to just provide the factory with while assembled forks so who knows.
It makes me wonder if that was one of the reasons I didn't hate the front end on that bike even stock when others really complained it was too harsh.
Stay tuned for more reports this spring we're I finally test it out.
How much for the "Payoffs".