Suspension Issues - Need a Guru

[Mr Speirs]

Recently I swapped my stock shock for a zx10r shock. I also got hold of some forks with racetech gold emulators and uprated springs.

Was out on it yesterday and the bike felt odd.
At one point I could have sworn the back end jumped off the floor whilst turning a corner at low speed. Throughout the ride it felt a bit twitchy.

So Guru's is my shock set up incorrectly? I measured the sag and that seemed fine.

Any advice??

[Blue_SV650S]

What have you done with the damping settings?

i.e. how many turns out are the adjustment screws?

[Biker Biggles]

If it felt like it was jumping at slow speed Id recheck all the bolts holding the suspension units.Maybe something has come loose from the mods you did?
Otherwise theres always tyre pressures to check.

[custard]

might be too high compression.

[Mr Speirs]

Settings were taken from the Sport Rider website.
They are as follows.
Rebound Damping: 1.5 turns out from full stiff
Compression Damping: 3.5 turns out full stiff

[Blue_SV650S]

Settings were taken from the Sport Rider website.
They are as follows.
Rebound Damping: 1.5 turns out from full stiff
Compression Damping: 3.5 turns out full stiff

I should have also asked ...

How many turns out will the adjusters go?

i.e. is that 1.5 turns from 3 turns or 1.5 turns from 30 turns ... one being half way ... the other being essentially fully on!! ;)

[Mr Speirs]

I not 100% sure but I would say 3.5 turns out from full stiff was roughly half. I belive the same for the 1.5 turn too so...
1.5 of 7
3.5 of 7

Cheears

[Blue_SV650S]

I not 100% sure but I would say 3.5 turns out from full stiff was roughly half. I belive the same for the 1.5 turn too so...
1.5 of 7
3.5 of 7

Cheears

1.5 sounds way too far in to me then ...

Try winding rebound to 3 and compression to 4 ...

On my 636 shock I ended up winding things out a fair bit before I was happy ... never actually counted final setting, just twiddled until I was happy ... you are best off making big adjustments at first ... its easy to go too-far and wind it back to a point you are happy with ... 1/2 a turn at a time in stages might be hard to detect when you have it and passed the sweetspot ...

[Mr Speirs]

Cool I shall try that Blue. I hoping its just that that is making the bike feel funny.

[Blue_SV650S]

Cool I shall try that Blue. I hoping its just that that is making the bike feel funny.

As BB says, check all the nuts/bolts are done up, but if the damping is set to high, the rear wheel will not track the road too well ... so if you hit just the right (wrong) combination of bumps, the rear wheel will quite literally be off the ground ... or at least not in full contact with the road!

[Mr Speirs]

I believe that is what I am feeling. Occasionally whilst going in a pretty much straight line the bike shifts slightly almost like i was riding on a camber for a split second.

[Blue_SV650S]

I believe that is what I am feeling. Occasionally whilst going in a pretty much straight line the bike shifts slightly almost like i was riding on a camber for a split second.

Yep, so back them off ... you will soon know when you have gone too far as it will feel like riding a pogo stick!! :D

[Mr Speirs]

Cool. Thanks alot blue. Obviously I shall also check bolts n junk.

[northwind]

I take it those settings off the website are for the ZX? Don't use those, you have a very different linkage so the leverage is all different.

My approach is just to fanny about with all the dials til it stops trying to kill me. Never fails :smt003

[chakraist]

I start with working out sag and preload, then go ride a few bumpy corners, get that sorted, then go and play about on a road you know well, take a screwdriver so you can change it all over, eventually you'll get it down. There's a website that I'm sure someone has bookmarked somewhere (I used to) with a basic guide to setting up suspension.

[Bibio]

I believe that is what I am feeling. Occasionally whilst going in a pretty much straight line the bike shifts slightly almost like i was riding on a camber for a split second.

i had the same problem but worse, the bike felt as though the front wheel was riding on and off a crest.. it turned out to be the lower shokky bolt fouling on a linkage.. check your linkages for rubbing...

[df1uk]

i had the same problem but worse, the bike felt as though the front wheel was riding on and off a crest.. it turned out to be the lower shokky bolt fouling on a linkage.. check your linkages for rubbing...

Hi check out this link for all the info on this shock swap

http://forum.svrider.com/showthread.php?t=80387&highlight=zx10r+shock

Hope this helps, doing this mod myself soon! have the shocker but need to find the time.

[maviczap]

I had a web page saved on how to set your suspension, but they've gone and deleted it! Had all the tips to setting up static sag & all the other bits

Maybe a trip to a suspension specialist would save you a lot of head scratching. There's list of suspension specialists on the K -Tech website

http://www.k-tech.uk.com/dealers.php

MCT are near me and I know that one of the magazines took their test bike to have it's suspension sorted. I'll be taking my SV there sometime

http://www.mctechnics.co.uk/

[maviczap]

A cheaper option would be to buy this months Ride magazine. On page 48 theres an article on how to set up your suspenders :-P

[dyzio]

Try winding rebound to 3 and compression to 4

Sorry to hijack, but would these work for a zx636 c1h shock?

[Blue_SV650S]

Sorry to hijack, but would these work for a zx636 c1h shock?

Mine is B1 ... but I was giving those settings on what the OP had said he had his at now and going by the symptoms ... NOT saying it was ideal for all bikes/people ...

If you are unhappy with your bike, then describe the symptoms and give us the total adjustment and the current settings and hopefully we can get you twiddling in the correct direction ... :)

[pilot]

Try putting the settings back where you found them and follow these setup instructions:

http://mi-hsta.com/Suspension.html

[dyzio]

Thanks, I'll have a read.
The thing I dislike since I've done the suspension (hagon progressives, 15W oil, c1h rear) is that when going into a corner I have to push the bar noticeably harder to counter steer. Erm... does that make any sense?

[yorkie_chris]

Front end isn't bottomed out so less trail. Jack back end up or drop the yokes down the forks to compensate.

[dyzio]

Thanks,
How much are we talking about here?

[yorkie_chris]

try with 5mm of fork tube stuck up through yokes.

[Mr Speirs]

Right went for a ride today.
Wound the compressing and rebound out a bit. Seems to be a whole lot more stable.
Just a case of fettling til it feels nice.
Thanks for everyones advice.