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6/16/2018
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Carnation, WA
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I have a Rock Shox Zeb with the R damper (rebound is the only adjustment). It works pretty well but the bike blows thru mid stroke and into the end stroke pretty easily. Air pressure and tokens seems right, doesn’t bottom easily but g outs and other compressions feel no bueno. Any way seems like there is a variety of after market and SRAM’s own upgraded damper. Wondering who has used what and what they liked?
The charger dampers are solid and we'll definitely be a significant improvement. I'm using a custom charger 2.1 which just has more compression than a standard, but the new 3 has more than old it's already a significant improvement for you.
If you want to go all out, I'd suggest sending the fork off to a tuner and getting the bushing alignment done while plonking in a new damper, it's well worth it.
Get a charger or aftermarket damper with at least low speed compression adjustment, in addition to rebound. Sounds like the next step for your riding. It will be a very cost effective upgrade. It’s hard to overstate what a good fork damper can do for the bike.
I have had a zeb since release as I bought a zeb ultimate back in 2019 when they hit the market and got the first one my LBS got. That fork served me well over the years and saw many mods, vorsprung secus, then a smashpot, a hc97 push charger damper and ultimately a modified charger 2.1 (home brew shim stack nonsense).
At any rate, getting to the point. That fork developed a CSU creak, and it was obvious to me I was better off buying a 23' MY zeb select and moving over the internals to that chassis. I ultimately ditched the charger 2.1 and just got an MRP Lift damper. I've been running that Lift damper with a vorsprung secus and it's been absolutely fantastic. Completely blows all versions of the charger 2.1 and 3 that I've run (I haven't tried the new 3.1 yet). I also just got a grip x2 fox 38, and I only have so many runs on that fork so far, but I think the lift damper is also better then the new fox dampers as well.
So my advice would be to get an MRP lift damper. I think this zeb setup I have now is one, if not the best fork damper I've ever run. The only fork dampers (oem) that I haven't tried yet are the ohlins and ext... but I have run custom tuned dampers (avalanche, push, local guy back in the og marz days) and this lift damper is better then all of those.
FWIW, I'm 175lbs, 170mm fork, running the green tune.
Upgrading to a different damper is a great upgrade to the Zeb R, and will effectively turn it into an Ultimate or Select+ level-fork, with the potential exception of Buttercups if you care about that. Can't speak to the MRP damper, but I have an old Zeb RC damper from my Select+ fork that I'd be willing to sell for peanuts, and you can get a brand new Charger 3.0 damper from a 2024 Zeb Ultimate on the Pinkbike Buy/Sell for $250 right now: https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/list/?location=194-*-*&q=zeb%20damper&category=87 I'm running a Charger 2.1 damper in my fork now and love it. If you're doing the upgrade, I would recommend ponying up for the full-meal-deal damper from the Ultimate fork, as the RC damper was a little underwhelming for me (despite being wildly adequate and not a problem at all).
FYI for the thread all of the Zeb dampers are called "Charger" dampers. There's the Charger R damper with external rebound only (what OP has in their fork), the Charger RC (comes on Select+ models), and the Charger 2.1, Charger 3, or Charger 3.1 that comes in the Ultimate-level fork.
Just had my first ride on the MRP Lift in a Zeb and I agree with ebruner, I massively prefer it to the Charger 2.1 or 3, and Grip2 VVC. I was expecting to notice a difference, but was not expecting the difference to be so stark. Felt much more controlled than the stock damp(en)ers I've tried with none of the harshness that always seems to come with cranking the compression up. Assuming it holds up over the long term seems like a winner
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