Hello,

I recently purchased and just finished building up a FLYXII FR-202. Everything went together really well except I seem to be having some noise issues and wondered if any of you had a similar experience or advice.

For my headset I went with a Cane Creek Forty IS42 top and 52 bottom. The problem arises when I brake hard with the front and occasionally when I pressure either side of the bars individually. I get multiple unsettling cracking sounds coming directly from the headset. I've tried the usual, greasing rituals and about every different combination of torque on the star nut but nothing seems to change it. I made sure it wasn't the bars, stem, or pesky internal cable routing.

The top bearing drops in fairly easy and doesn't have play and the bottom is snug, requiring a bit of force to press in but easily doable by hand. I'm thinking it might be something with the the top cup but I'm not sure, I've never worked with carbon integrated headsets. Is there any cleanup process required for these frames before installing the headset? I couldn't see any actual aluminum cups, it just looked like carbon roughly formed into cups? Is that correct?

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!