Boxxers have problems. “No kidding” I’m sure you’re telling yourself but a bigger problem has always been finding ways to sort the problems. For myself it involved sending my forks away to get properly tuned for my weight and style, getting supposedly better oil seals. At £70 plus this isn’t a cheap option when you still blow the seals every 3-4 months!

This is where Mojo stepped in, they realized the many flaws of Boxxers and in particular the somewhat dated damping system (I’m not going to go into Boxxer bashing here though, you can find that elsewhere). They then took it upon themselves to find a suitable upgrade system that can go straight into the fork. Of course it’s worth remembering that Mojo are the UK importer for Fox, ie parts ain’t a problem, skills ain’t a problem, tuning knowledge ain’t a problem, manufacturing skills? Well time will tell on that front.

What they came up with was a single sided damping system, with the other side being used for springing duties but still having the, now redundant, damper sitting in that leg. No oil bath anymore, just enough oil to keep everything nice ‘n’ sweet. Unlike the old dampers this, as expected, is a proper nitro charged unit using shim stacks to carry out the important duties and it even has a usable adjuster!

When the kit arrived the first problem I came across was getting into the damn thing! Ok so the packaging isn’t up to Avalanche standards, but it really is protective (think layer upon layer of cardboard)! After that it all just looks so simple and so good! Everything just looks right; the top cap looks like a bit of class and the damper looks to have great quality of finish. You also get some nice graphics thrown in, these however will probably remain in my bedroom, don’t really look thick enough for the sort of abuse they would have to take. Instructions? Well you get one page, and that’s all you need.

Fitting the kit couldn’t really be easier, strip everything out of the right leg and bolt the damper straight in, then strip and clean the left leg and just put it back together like you usually would. The only difference is that you’ll probably be using a new spring and that the left leg only needs 50cc of oil, the right just needs enough to cover the main damper body. The spring supplied is rated at 30lb/in, this is about right for your average rider but as with anything of this nature you may need to do some experimenting to get it right.

Performance

The first thing you notice when you bolt everything together is that you now have a totally different beast attached to the front of your bike. It may still have RS packaging but that’s where the similarity between old and new stops. There is certainly more noise than the forks were making before (2001’s in my case) but still quieter than Marzocchi’s offerings on the car park test, most of this disappears when you follow the guidelines for setting up the fork but there is always a little noise there. However, where the old damping system felt fast and springy, suddenly everything feels slower and more controlled – then you get it onto the trail!

I was lucky in that I had a race coming up a couple of days after fitting the kit, not the roughest of tracks but still a very good test of equipment. The first noticeable point was the lack of anything noticeable! I was expecting to have to concentrate a lot more on what the front end was doing for a couple of runs but it just seemed to work. I had, skeptically, taken Mojo’s advice and slowed the damper down almost as far as it would go. So this should have been a big change to the famously quick rebound of the normal forks but it just tracked as it should without a hint of packing down, letting me concentrate on dragging my sorry ass down the hill! It seemed to track small to medium hits especially well, the few big hits that it did have to take also seemed very well controlled, no crashy feeling, no spiking, doing just enough to make sure you were kept in touch with what’s happening under the front wheel. Stutter bumps were also taken in their stride and even the ubiquitous drop-to-flat was absorbed in such a way that would make the old dampers blush!

It was after this that things really started getting interesting though! Mojo sent me a draft so that I could remove the spring sleeves that RS stuff inside the forks. The result was almost unbelievable! It turns out that they had been creating more friction when rubbing against the damper than I’d realised, meaning that the fork now feels nothing short of incredible! They seem completely stiction-less and way plusher than any other fork I’ve been able to get my hands on, whilst still having that bottomless feel that you always want! To be honest I’m finding it difficult to get my head round what they can do at the moment, simply awesome.

I also decided to fit some Fox seals too, not necessary by any means but as my oil seals were leaking anyway it would’ve been rude not to! These are a one piece unit, so no separate dust and oil seals now which helps make everything even smoother. These seals are designed to weep a little fluid and now that the forks only carry a little oil anyway this isn’t a problem due to less pressure on being applied to them, but it may mean having to top up your oil a little more often.

Maintenance of the fork should be simple and infrequent. Mojo recommend a service interval of between 12 & 24 months for the damper itself, and changing the oil will just be whenever you feel the need. And of course this’ll be a lot quicker now that you don’t have dampers to clean out everytime! Reliability isn’t something I’ll really talk about until I’ve had more time with the fork, however there is no reason why anything should cause any problems………but then I’m sure that’s been said before!

So then £210 later trying to bring a set of forks up to date and am I happy? Well so far yes, and very much so! The only problems I’ve encountered were due to Rockshox (with that very helpful part that isn’t even mentioned on their exploded diagrams!) with everything supplied by Mojo doing exactly as it should. I will need to get it to more tracks to get a better idea of how it handles different situations, but so far everything points towards a damper that will take the p*ss out of anything thrown at it!

A lot of people saw buying this kit as a risk, personally I’ll take the £200 risk instead of spending at least £600 more on a whole new setup that could also be the wrong choice. I think the RS stickers will be coming off my forks very soon indeed (in fact they already have done).