Well my experiment continues. Swapped the sram force/garbaruk cage derailleur to an eagle GX derailleur. Biggest difference was in the speed of the setup. SRAM has b tensioning, chain length, etc really broken down. It probably took me 5 mins to swap and set everything up. I was messing with the modified derailleur for an hour plus: getting chain length/b tension just right. Biggest difference b/w the two derailleurs is the clutch. The eagle clutch is exponentially more stiff than the road/force derailleur. Shifting wise it’s almost a wash. I think the eagle wins it, but maybe it’s because it’s the new shiny thing in the room. The only other thing I noticed is eagle derailleur micro adjustments are close to middle (16/30) and the force micro adjust was almost maxed out (3/30).
If I was to do it from scratch, I would just buy an eagle unit. It’s dead simple to install/adjust. The clutch is nicer and has a lock button making wheel removal more easy. It’s more burly and the battery is tucked away/protected by a cage.
The modified derailleur is going on the next project/experiment: 2x drivetrain with XPLR (10/44t) cassette.
by dr_zubik