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tried the 18mm shock shaft?
no
I suspect that shock has valving to match that shafts extra flow through the high speed comp circuit ?
It was said earlier in the thread, Hondas are sprung light. I haven’t ridden the 25 yet but the previous models I would go up one rate in the front and I’m 76kg (167lb) vet A speed. At 182 you will need springs which your fork settings indicate needing stiffer springs. I would go up a rate front and rear first before getting revalved.
my b I thought you had tried a bunch of things already. your gonna have to start somewhere since you've kind of run the gamut on the stock settings. I would begin with springs and revalve from a reputable tuner, local preferred.
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Yep.
But it's the typical tradeoff scenario - is the exra cush/smoothness more important than rollover/squirm on hardpack corners, etc.?
He would tell everyone to pull the tampon out ur assholes and ride ur stinkin bike! I'm sure he would be getting a good laugh.
My KTM 2022 SXF with 6500 and Xact Pro is unrideable at less than 40mm static hot (42mm cold). That gives around 110-111 sag, but also works great when I'm at those numbers. Same with OEM shock. Smooth tracks, sure anything works.
38mm hot, and it starts to get harsh, deflects. No matter valving or clickers. You just can't compensate with valving when applying to much preload to spring.
Drop sag until you feel chassi feels OK over chatter and bumps, then go in on LS and HSC, plus out on rebound until you get balance and ride height back.
There is only one downside to reduxe sag, and that is that frontend will track less, and you will have less pressure on front tire. Some you get back with clickers, but never the same.
Just dropping sag without compensating clickers only works if the package (spring, valving, clickers) is to stiff to start with.
When I drop 2mm sag, I go out 1 click on rebound since it slows down, and in ~2-3 clicks LSC. That gives a way smoother ride for exactly what you describe.
It's also that just dropping sag, can get you on the other end of the spectrum, meaning it gets worse unless some balance is maintained and bought back using LSC/Reb and some HSC if needed.
Good info, thanks for the follow-up. Curious how much preload is on your stock rear spring: Sounds like going up a rate will get you closer (free sag and rear end feel) to where you want to be. Between the R and RWE, I greatly preferred the 18mm shaft and base settings of the Works Edition. May be more beneficial to get your R components sprung and valved, just wanted to throw that out there. Also - If running MX34’s, this chassis likes a 120/90 over the stock 120/80 MX33…May have to go from 2mm to flush on the FH to accommodate, but it could also help this back-end sensation you’re struggling with! Cheers and keep us updated
how bout it spacecat. whats the report on the FC mods?
thanks
yea I am willing to get the suspension done HOWEVER I have learned the hard way that there are chassis issues out there that suspension cannot fully cure. I would be fine if there is a setup that at least smashed most of the issue BUT at 1500 $+ I wanted to get as much data as I can before pulling trigger on just any shim shuffler
BTW where I live we ride slot car tracks. Meaning long thin ruts through every turn. I have found on every bike Ive owned I like a 110/90 out back best as it does seem to fight you less at roll over in these situations
kinda off subject but personally I think too many guys get caught up with sag numbers. Who cares what number it is. Set it at 105mm at home, cold on a flat surface. Now go ride. then based on how it feels try a half turn one way or another and repeat until you find the sweet spot. Then after you get home and the shock cools, check the sag again and record the number. Just make sure you are wearing basically the same clothes so its apple to apples. If it turns out to be excessive sag one way or the other than you can address spring rate. But, if it feels the best at 109mm, and mxa says it should be 103mm, phuck em!
yes I learned a long time ago to use a sag numbers as a ball park to start BUT always go up and down by feel AND IMO its the most underrated adjustment ever.
This was learned using a hydraulic preload adjuster on shock with a cable running up to my handle bars so I could adjust sag out on track. That way I didnt have to come in, get tools out, make adjustments, then back out to track. That upset my ability to discern the changes. With that on the fly adjustment I got a much keener sense of the change .
After about a month of use I can now feel 1mm change and no longer need the expensive adjuster
sag is critical to overall balance and even 1mm can be noticed. I find some bikes go from ok to great with only 1-2mm change. Others dont respond quite that critically. My 2022sxf was very sesative to even 1 mm. The 2025 yamaha is far less sensitive. Still important but very different responses from these two bikes.
AND again dont go strictly by measurement which btw is VERY difficult to get repeatable results with. Just get it somewhere in the ballpark ( I recommend standing on pegs only and balance there. Every other way shows quite inconsistent results BUT as said, in the end go by feel after ya get it measured.
This has to be one of the better threads on Vital in awhile. A lot of great commentary, thoughts and opinions.
I just picked up a 2025 CRF450 last week and took it out both Saturday and Sunday here in SoCal at Pala (yes, I still call it Pala and not Fox). Everything in this thread is very relatable to what I felt even on the first couple of rides. Coming off a 2024 SXF FE (and 10 years of riding steel frame bikes) I was just looking for a different feel. My last Honda was a 2008 CRF450 so maybe just dreaming of the glory days.
I only have a couple hours on the bike so I am still breaking it it. At 200 lb Vet B rider, I know the springs are soft. My plan is to get the suspension valved and sprung in the next few weeks by RideJBI.
As far as my experience so far, I basically rolled it off the showroom floor and rode the first hour after setting the clickers to some baseline based on Keefer's recommendation. I knew the forks were going to be soft so I left the sag at 118 which is what it was from the show room for me. Even with that much sag, the soft forks did dive really bad off-throttle. The on-throttle feel of the rear end though low, was very stable. The oddest feeling I was feeling from the bike was this very weird kick from the rear off-throttle. I am attributing that do the really soft forks and the lack of hold up.
For day 2 I decided to add 40cc's of oil in each fork leg and added 3 turns of preload to the shock. That got me in the 108-109 range. Both of those really did help balance the bike and prevent the diving/pitching. I was playing around with the fork rebound and seem to battling between too fast as I speed them up to a little harsh as I slowed them down. By the end of the day, I ended up adding another turn of preload (now in the 105-106 range). All that help balance the bike, but I never was able to get rid of the off-throttle kick in the rear end. Not sure if I relate that to harshness of the chassis or suspension setup.
Anyways, again I only have couple hours on the bike so a lot to learn and experiment with.
Please keep the dialog going. I am interested to hear everyone's thought on the 18mm shock shaft as well as how some of the different suspension shops are improving this machine.
Thanks again!
To my knowledge the 25 WE model has the 18mm shaft. You can buy this from RM Cycle less than what the shops are asking for it. This is the complete shaft, piston, clevis all ready to bolt in. I would clarify it to make sure it would go into your shock body, but both are 50mm so it should work.
52421-K95-AJ1
ROD, PISTON
$485.27
$402.77 their price
That's about the same price I have been quoted. Approximately $500 to do 18mm shock shaft upgrade. It's on my wishlist.
question is, is the high speed comp stack same on R and WE?. If the R has a different high speed stack than the WE then simply swaping over to a bigger shaft may be a problem?
I too was on 2007-2008 CRFs before the sxf
AND btw "break in" on the 2025 CRF made zero difference to the harshness I am feeling
AND for those who have SXFs. AER is by far the worst offender for "break in" I have ever delt with. There is a stickyness in that design that I am sure MANY suspensions shops have made a ton simply because people didnt give that fork time to brake in AND for good reason, it takes forever!
I spent the first half of a summer simply chassing "what the hell " with that fork because I assumed the sticky feel would be the main pistion in the air cartridge. It turns out it isnt the issue, its the seal head. There are so called "glide kits" to help but never tryed them. I had two catrages to compare. One with less than 10hr and another with about 100 hrs. The feel both on track and working the plunger by hand was night and day difference between the two.
Also tryed a ton of different high pressure lubes to help BUT slip stick action remains. Even did some exotic stuff with teflon addatives and even graphite addatives. In the end it was the ultra expensive lube KTM selld=s for it that no one uses that worked best
There is a fundamental issue with AER imo. Its an elegant and simple design and I loved the feel of a lighte weight fork in dynamic moves like scubs and whips and sudden line changes and I like being able to alter spring rate at will track to track BUT in the end the coil conversions won out
interestingly Gasjer has switched from Showa components to KYB for this year. Obviously you can't directly compare race bikes to what consumers experience but Tim wasn't getting the feel he wanted from the Showa stuff. Will be interesting if the Lawrences eventually make a similar switch.
yea for sure you need some coils
BUT in the mean time try simply running the fork rebound clicker to only 2-3 out from full hard. the crossover effect gives a solid increase in compression damp and that combined with the 40cc ya put in makes that stock fork ridable. the actual comp clicker at top of fork didnt give what was needed and seemed to make things worse with extreem setting.
ALSO I found the stock shock spring on the 25 honda to need attention constantly in the first 3-4 hrs. It seems to take a set? strange as I kept having to reset preload to get back to where it started after a long ride. After a few hrs it was fine but strange. Ive never seen a coil do that before in my life.
I have heard others say somthing similar happened to them. Not at all sure what is going on there.
Pit Row
The simple fact the shaft is 18 mm vs 16 won't change the harshness. It's the revised valving in the shock that makes a difference (if any). The only real reason to go to a larger shaft is to reduce the chance of buckling, which for the normal rider is irrelevant. If you're on supercross suspension casing the big triple at A1, it becomes a different story, but for most people it's just a marketing tactic.
god damn we need a keefer x luxon video sooo badly.
I love how efficient truth is
Fight club
Meanwhile, 3 factory ktm group riders are running the productio airfork in supercross, they obviously didn't learn from vital that fork is unrideable 😉
They do it in sx cause it’s lighter, in outdoors the front end deserves to pack a little more mass.
Vital doesn’t have thought processes like this.
Ride JBI has a video explaining how the chain torque binds up the stroke on the KTM group and stays bound up until full compression. He claims he has setting to compensate for that.
Have you tried slowing the rebound? That could be the cause of your kick.
And another is running kyb inserts
Thanks 3strokemx.
Yes, I have gone in quite a bit (4-5 clicks) without much of a difference in the kick. Mostly just make the ride harsh on acceleration bumps. This kick is more like just a weight transfer or something when the rear isn't weighted (off acceleration). I am still playing with SAG and Rebound to see if I can reduce this sensation.
Left field, I know, but have you tried running any HSTC (green light) settings yet? I swear the backend is more settled with it when utilized, not just on acceleration. Also, this chassis/engine combo LOVE being ridden a gear high; helps quite a bit on that harshness many experience. Same track, went from 2nd/3rd gear on a 25’ KX450 to 3rd/4th on the 25’ CRF - That drastic.
My last 25’ 450RWE specs:
Map1, HSTC1 (Option: Map3, HSTC1/2 for pace days). Fork height flush to 2.5mm, C10/R11, Shock: 103-105mm sag, HS1.25/LS8/R8
Unfortunately I live in Ohio and the weather is trash right now. I'll report back as soon as I can. It's all set up and ready to go
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