I purchased the GT V7 "Hybrid" Fork Kit with the Mupo emulators, Matris preload adjusters and RT springs and the RT IFP Twin shocks for my Stornello last year and here are my thoughts on the installation and riding. I'm 220 pounds and ride a Stornello.
The easy one is to talk about the shocks. The OEM shocks were quickly replaced with the Progressive shocks at I Moto's suggestion but the improvement was slight and I was looking for a bit more height. Todd suggested the RT IFP with an extra 20 mm. Installation was straight forward and the improvement significant. The higher rear end meant that the geometry changed slightly and the bike turns in quicker. That is handy both on the street and the trail and I think was an improvement. No regrets! For the light dual-sport riding I do on the Stornello (no jumps!) means that I like the damping on the light side and I progressively dialed it all the way off over a couple months of riding.
The fork kit was selected as the OEM damping rod system created a harsh response at high compression rates; exactly what my commute on the freeway was giving me and in off pavement riding ! had to keep the speed way down to avoid sharp responses. The harshness was bad enough I decided I couldn't tour until I fixed it. Todd suggested the Hybrid Forks kit which included the Mupo emulators and Matris preload adjusters and RT springs and spacers. However, the damping seemed to increase. After reading up on how emulators work and what others did, and recognizing that I don't have the tools to take apart the forks, I took the forks out of the bike and headed over to Hamlin Cycles. I emailed Mupo for instructions without success, but as RT has a similar looking emulator Jim decided to follow the instructions for that. Although the emulators are described as drop in, we were looking for less damping so he drilled out the damping rod holes to 5/16 and added another pair of holes. We put the Mupo emulators in with the acorn nut up as that was the way shown in a Mupo ad. After reassembling the forks he poured in 15w fork oil and set the air gap at 140 mm. I raced home, reinstalled the forks and headed down the street. What a huge improvement!
Now, two weeks later and after a couple others have ridden the bike I'm thinking it might still be a bit too much damping. The bike is still firmly planted in turns but the high speed compression is a bit hard. I will try increasing the air gap and may go to 10w fork oil when I change it this winter. I'm off for a two-week trip to Gaspe and it will get a good workout.
Update: July 2020. The Gaspe trip was great with a mix of paved and unpaved roads, a few km of trails, snow, sunshine and heavy rain. To the point of this post, some of the roads were rough and the Stornello's revised suspension was, to my taste, still too rough on compression, although much improved. When I got home I syphoned out as much of the 15w fork oil as I could and replaced it with some 7.5 I had lying around. A small but noticeable improvement. A couple weeks ago I decided it was time to change out the fork oil and I replaced it with 5w and set the airgap at 160 mm, still more improvement, although the front end feels more small movements, probably due to the lower viscosity reducing the rebound damping.
I think this is about as far as I can go, other than increasing the air gap a bit more. It works pretty well and is a huge improvement over stock. In hindsight, I should have figured that the non-adjustable Mupo's were designed for street riding and I'm looking for a dual-sport setup with softer damping. The Race Tech emulators with their adjustable damping would probably have been a better choice for me as I could have dialed off some damping.
One day after I replaced the fork oil I did hear back from Mupo with instructions. Luckily my guesses were basically correct, although for the V7II they recommend 10w and 135 mm.
