New formula selva C advice needed

PB Forum :: All Mountain, Enduro & Cross-Country
New formula selva C advice needed
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flag Cura
Posted: Jul 26, 2021 at 4:33 Quote
I am using a firm spring on it. Medium is way too soft. A friend of mine uses a soft spring and it is still too hard for him. Formula has advised my friend to remove the o-ring which seals the coil champer and makes the fork more progressive. That way there is no air compressing inside the coil side stanchion, therefore the fork behaves in a linear manner like a true coil fork. I have noticed that it is near impossible to use the last third of the travel even though the fork would be supple of the top
flag aribr
O+
Posted: Jul 26, 2021 at 4:48 Quote
Cura wrote:
I am using a firm spring on it. Medium is way too soft. A friend of mine uses a soft spring and it is still too hard for him. Formula has advised my friend to remove the o-ring which seals the coil champer and makes the fork more progressive. That way there is no air compressing inside the coil side stanchion, therefore the fork behaves in a linear manner like a true coil fork. I have noticed that it is near impossible to use the last third of the travel even though the fork would be supple of the top

Which CTS do you run?
flag Cura
Posted: Jul 26, 2021 at 5:58 Quote
I use the gold cts
flag aribr
O+
Posted: Jul 26, 2021 at 6:55 Quote
Cura wrote:
I use the gold cts

Interesting, I may struggle to reach full travel then. Will test tonight and see whether I've gone for a too stiff coil.
flag burquenomas
Posted: Jul 26, 2021 at 9:13 Quote
Marasdfg wrote:
Cura wrote:
Yes, I’ve been riding with formula forks for the last 3 years. Now I have full coil setup from formula. I weight close to 100kg.

What coil do you have? I just bought selva C and I'm thinking that most likely the medium spring that comes as default option is too light for me. I'm 102 kg without my riding gear.

And nice Marino! I've owned one hardtail from them and one full suspension bike. Both were nice bikes.

Thanks I just love that Cabala frame it's a blast to ride without even mentioning the less is more factor of a HT steel frame.
Once in the market for another FS frame I think I might turn to his it look dope.

I really hope the era of stupid expensive frame is coming to an end, with people like Marino it might who knows.

So at 85-88kg I ran it with the included medium spring and that was way but way too soft. I purchased the firm and extra firm and so far installed the firm and I'm still tuning the fork but it's already much better. I'll try the extra firm once I'm happy with the firm just for the heck of it.
flag aribr
O+
Posted: Jul 26, 2021 at 10:15 Quote
Extra firm is good for me. I can use 130mm just jumping on the fork in the car park. 175mm stanchion is showing on my 160mm FYI.
flag Alelunfa
Posted: Oct 25, 2021 at 21:46 Quote
Cura wrote:
I am using a firm spring on it. Medium is way too soft. A friend of mine uses a soft spring and it is still too hard for him. Formula has advised my friend to remove the o-ring which seals the coil champer and makes the fork more progressive. That way there is no air compressing inside the coil side stanchion, therefore the fork behaves in a linear manner like a true coil fork. I have noticed that it is near impossible to use the last third of the travel even though the fork would be supple of the top

Hi Cura
I'm experiencing the same, I can't use the last 40mm of travel.
There is a 20mm white spacer above the spring. The travel available is 180mm minus the 20mm of the spacer is 160mm.
I never ever used the last 40mm of travel. Doesn't look like it's normal.
I'm 80kg using medium spring and medium blu CTS
flag Cura
Posted: Oct 25, 2021 at 23:52 Quote
If you are measuring from the top top of the stanchion, it does not give you a right amount of used travel. It is 2-3cm below. The spacer is related to your trsvel. Same spring for 160mm and 170mm therefore on need additional spacer to compensate. Try removing the o-ring I mentionded before. Also, it is recommended by formula to use softer compression damping than on air versions. Try the silver one. I really liked it for trail riding.

I have noticed that formula forks are very sensitive to having fresh lower leg oils. I dont know if it has anything to do with bushings. Good thing is that the seals are the same as with rockshox 35mm flanged from skf so would highly reccomens changing those green ones during service. Formula used them on nero before but for some reason is using different seal this year for their low friction seal kits.

Lower leg oil is very thick as well so if riding in cold wearher, try something thinner.
flag Alelunfa
Posted: Nov 2, 2021 at 13:33 Quote
Cura wrote:
If you are measuring from the top top of the stanchion, it does not give you a right amount of used travel. It is 2-3cm below. The spacer is related to your trsvel. Same spring for 160mm and 170mm therefore on need additional spacer to compensate. Try removing the o-ring I mentionded before. Also, it is recommended by formula to use softer compression damping than on air versions. Try the silver one. I really liked it for trail riding.

I have noticed that formula forks are very sensitive to having fresh lower leg oils. I dont know if it has anything to do with bushings. Good thing is that the seals are the same as with rockshox 35mm flanged from skf so would highly reccomens changing those green ones during service. Formula used them on nero before but for some reason is using different seal this year for their low friction seal kits.

Lower leg oil is very thick as well so if riding in cold wearher, try something thinner.

Thanks Cura,
I removed the o-ring, not much gain.
I ordered the soft gray cts and the soft coil spring as I always felt the medium coil too hard for me. It must be my bike geometry.
flag jzPV
Posted: Aug 9, 2022 at 3:35 Quote
I've got the same problem with the soft spring and not using enough travel. Sent the fork to the distributor who checked everything and they had to calibrate the bushings, but not much gain. 70 kg on the standard soft spring.

I think the Selva C is a useless design...
The air pressure in the spring chamber for bottom out resistance stays the same, regardless of the actual steel spring, so a fork with a soft spring is much more progressive than a fork with a harder spring. stupid.

I had to run the damping also completely open (gold CTS) and having no real adjustability is a complete dealbreaker. The silver CTS was worse because it's more high speed, combined with the progression the fork became completely unrideable. Can't understand how that can be the most comfortable valve with that much HS...
The distributor or Formula themselves had no ideas to remedy these problems.
Worst fork I've ever ridden and probably my worst bike purchase ever.
flag Marasdfg
Posted: Sep 30, 2022 at 2:27 Quote
For me the fork felt pretty harsh from day one. No matter what compression or rebound settings I used. But once I did the lower leg service, the fork felt noticeably better. Like day and night. No problems using the travel and the fork still fells sensitive and gives enough support for my type of riding.

I have a question as well. Where can you buy the air spring assembly to fit the fork? I can only find the coil spring upgrade kits aimed for air sprung Selvas, but no air spring kits. I'm swapping the fork to a different bike that uses less travel and if I'd convert the coil spring to air spring, I could reduce travel to 130 mm that I need. I asked Formula, they told me to contact local distributor. I did that, they promised to "look into it" but now several months later I have had zero responses.
flag aribr
O+
Posted: Sep 30, 2022 at 4:16 Quote
Marasdfg wrote:
For me the fork felt pretty harsh from day one. No matter what compression or rebound settings I used. But once I did the lower leg service, the fork felt noticeably better. Like day and night. No problems using the travel and the fork still fells sensitive and gives enough support for my type of riding.

I have a question as well. Where can you buy the air spring assembly to fit the fork? I can only find the coil spring upgrade kits aimed for air sprung Selvas, but no air spring kits. I'm swapping the fork to a different bike that uses less travel and if I'd convert the coil spring to air spring, I could reduce travel to 130 mm that I need. I asked Formula, they told me to contact local distributor. I did that, they promised to "look into it" but now several months later I have had zero responses.

For me this operation was cost prohibitive...but here are the part numbers required directly from Formula:

SB40133-00
SB40057-00
SB40058-00
SB40005-00
SB40206-00
SB40041-00

As you can see, a lot of parts are needed. What I did instead was remove the spacer (29er fork) and fabricate a spacer under the sealhead. This results in a ~145mm travel fork with an ACT like a 140 fork (since my Selva is 5mm shorter than RS equivalent). Do this at your own peril (I've been very happy with the results).
flag Marasdfg
Posted: Oct 1, 2022 at 5:27 Quote
Ah, so I guess the air spring assembly is not sold as a complete set. Thank you for the serial numbers!

Lowering the coil spring travel to 145 sounds like an interesting idea. But I am already using the stiffest spring so I assume that it would result me bottoming out the fork too often.
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