OHLINS VS GOLD VALVE

[TonyB]

Was wondering  what the difference is between an ohlins shock piston design and the gold valve design. so did a google and found interesting stuff, dont know if its relevant but  http://www.naake.com/xstackmanual.pdf

http://www.naake.com/lmj.html#technical     http://www.naake.com/lmj.pdf 

[JohnnyO]

Without comparing them side by side they are probably similar.
Ohlins has been around at the top level for a long time so their stuff is proven and i haven't heard much bad said about gold valves. The difference is Ohlins make complete shock and fork units and gold valve only make pistons.

[motomaniac]

The gold valve is fully machined from billet bronze alloy(?). has huge ports in both sides so you need alot of schimms to control blow though and bottoming.
Ohlins has conventional sized ports is part forged(or cast) and part machined is made of steel.Ohlins also have a range of cambered piston faces to preload your schimm stack .

[LWC82PE]

gold valve only make pistons.

Well actually Gold valve (Race Tech) Now make complete shocks. Check out their website. Motomaniac is right though, the Gold valve pistons have emapahasis on big ports and putting the oil flow on the shim stack and making the shims do most of the work. They have now developed a Type 2 and G3? gold valve with more restrictive porting for firmer damping to suit supercross type use. There is also more than one type/design of Ohlins piston available aswell.

[Slakewell]

Are gold valves worth the money I'm about to rebuild some 77 YZ forks. I like plushness and hate the feel of overdamped suspension. I just cant turn the bike with 100% confedence I rather slow down a bit for the big bumps and have that nice conection with the front tyre.

[LWC82PE]

We are talking 3 things here

Race Tech 'Gold shock Valves' - are pistons for inside rear shocks
Race Tech 'Gold fork Valves' -  are pistons for inside modern cartridge type forks
Race Tech 'Cartridge Emulators' - are cartridge fork emulator valves for old damping rod forks which also happen to be 'Gold' in colour

I have never heard anyone say that the cartridge emulators dont work, are not worth the money or dont totally transform the bike so i dont think so many people can be wrong. They actually won an award for motorcyle product of the year in safety and design or something along those lines way back in 94 or 95, sometime around there. Its pretty safe to say that your not buying a gimmick.