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1582
Joined
4/3/2017
Location
CA
Edited Date/Time
5/22/2022 1:13pm
Just thought I would start a 21 set up thread and see what people are using for settings.
I am at around 9 hours on forks.
The 21 fork seems to feel better than the 20 but still struggles in roots, rocks and square edge hits.
Pretty nice and plush in smoother terrain. I ride mostly woods, HS and the occasional MX track day.
Fork and shock for me feels a little unbalanced.
Bike is a 21 TX300. I am 175lb no gear.
Sag is set at 105.
Still running the standard WP settings from the manual.
I have been at 138psi pressure. Went for a ride yesterday, rooty rocky single track And whooped out 4th gear double track.
Forks were pretty far off the standard 1.5 inch travel from the bottom.
I am going to put another couple hours on them and start to adjust clickers. I run standard Nitro mousses. Hoping to get it to the MX track on Saturday.
Over the winter I’m planning on having Smart Performance built me some kits for forks and shock.
I am at around 9 hours on forks.
The 21 fork seems to feel better than the 20 but still struggles in roots, rocks and square edge hits.
Pretty nice and plush in smoother terrain. I ride mostly woods, HS and the occasional MX track day.
Fork and shock for me feels a little unbalanced.
Bike is a 21 TX300. I am 175lb no gear.
Sag is set at 105.
Still running the standard WP settings from the manual.
I have been at 138psi pressure. Went for a ride yesterday, rooty rocky single track And whooped out 4th gear double track.
Forks were pretty far off the standard 1.5 inch travel from the bottom.
I am going to put another couple hours on them and start to adjust clickers. I run standard Nitro mousses. Hoping to get it to the MX track on Saturday.
Over the winter I’m planning on having Smart Performance built me some kits for forks and shock.
Make sure your sag is set right. You also may not have hit anything to really mash the front end down. It is not the end of the world if you have 1.5" travel left. Don't worry you will find a trail obstacle where you use it all and wish there was more travel left.
The Shop
My gear is 15lb depending on how much liquid is in my pack. Sag was set when bike was delivered at 105. I will recheck in 10 hours.
I have to teach a course at my buddies track this weekend so I will get a chance to hit some jumps and get some flat landings as well. I have not really had a big drop on the bike yet. I’m heading out now for a couple hours of woods riding. I’m going to ride some faster 4th and 5th gear stuff today.
I appreciate the input!
They are tight as shit.
https://www.mcmaster.com/9262K206/
On my new 2020.5 xact forks, it has a really nice midvalve setup thats much more tuenable now and only small shims changes made them loads better without getting mushy.
You can also lower outer oil level as well... i tjink they still rely on outer oil for bottoming just like a spring fork
I stopped in my usual suspension set up riding area today, it’s about 4 hours from where I live. Really struggled again with settings. Smooth on trail trash and junk but harsh on square edge and roots and rocks higher than an inch or 2. Hit the mini sand track and was shocked at how harsh slap downs were and flat landings. Used up most of the fork travel today, was at about 1.5 inches from the bottom. No big jumps really, they were fairly small. Track was beat to crap and rain rutted.
Tried going way out on fork clickers as many suggested. Gave me a tiny bit more comfort At the expense of traction and control. No doubt part of my struggle is going from 4T to 2T.
I am riding a clay track tomorrow, they groomed it tonight. If usually gets sun baked and fairly smooth.
Next step either get it revalved or spring cartridges. Lucky or kyb. At least with the ‘21 midvalve more tuners may be able to figure it out since it is more like the Japanese forks.
I’ve been thinking about bumping it up to 145.
2022 MC350f
148 PSI
5.0 Rear spring rate
Stock Clickers
Sag: like 100 (dont ask.. oops)
205lb, 250B/250 Open/college
Change the bar first and then maybe the rear spring. You are bleeding the forks at the start of the day right?
Simple revalve will make those forks so much better
I kept having seal issues with my air side so I ended up just installing a set of Luckies. The stock fork settings work pretty good for MX, especially smoother tracks without a lot of square edge and braking bumps. For woods, they are pretty harsh and deflect a lot in rocks or square edge over an inch and a half.
I am bleeding the forks and setting the pressure that day and ensuring accuracy. It's interesting because the forks feel great except for the "sting" like WRC said, which is the perfect descriptor.
Tell me more about the stock Neken bars please. Are they known to be stiff? I was going to pick up a new set of bars soon anyways. I did fill the Nekens with Right Stuff foam, I felt like it made a difference on my YZ so I did it again.
Other solutions/fine tuning I am going to do is to re check and torque the triple clamp bolts, and make sure my sag is spot on. I don't want to come off the air pressure because then I cannot push the bike and I lose my margin of error for overjumping stuff.
Pit Row
Either you trust the ktm or race tech spring calculator. I have read you need to use race tech valving in conjunction with their spring rate. They spec super low rates on fork springs for instance. For instance a new kx450 gets consistently dinged in reviews for needing stiffer fork springs. Racetech says to go one rate softer. It is certainly worth trying the stock spring to see if it helps although it is at least one rate too soft for you based on the manual.
Yes the neken bar is stiff. You will feel it most in slap down landings and little high speed bumps like roots and rocks although the changes in the forks from 2021 on helped on both of those conditions.
I also have the bars from my YZ250 sitting inside and I might try them before spending the coin on fresh ones. I think they're unbranded Contour bars maybe? I doubt they are evos. Let me know if you have the answer, I have no clue.
On a similar route, would you think that something like PHDS would be beneficial or am I 'straining out a gnat' when I should be spending my money on a revalve come ~10 hours? Cost of living is gnarly so I'm not trying to be cheap, just really direct in my approach.
It is probably worthwhile to call your suspension guy and see what rear spring he recommends. I would also call some suspension guys and see what they recommend. They might say you need a revalve or maybe something else. Pro tune in Ohio had pretty reasonable fork revalve prices when I checked 18 months ago and he seemed to have a lot of experience with the different replacement cartridge options. You can also play with fork pressure a bit. Resist the temptation to try super low pressures.
I have my doubts as to how much phds will help but I have never tried it. I think it is more for engine vibration. A flexx bar might be more what you are looking for.
Ultimately you are probably going to have to pay for a revalve if that is the problem. If I liked how it handled everywhere else I might just live with it. My 150sx has some sting. It is worse than a showa fork, but I can deal with it. The gasgas is supposedly better than the ktm in that regard.
I'll start with the lowest hanging fruit: handlebars. I can do this trackside and test back to back without my ruts even changing which is nice.
Did your 150 break in and improve? How would you quantify the improvement?
Did it get better in the small chop? I'm afraid its going to beat my hands off the grips on a rough track lol.
Unfortunately IMO the front end slapping feeling is the air, the only way to correct it is a spring conversion. That has been my biggest complaint with the AER forks. The slap and initial harness drove me crazy, chased it with valving and finally cured it with spring conversions.
I also have seen the air spring cartridge needing additional lube as a set of mine was sticking from the factory and would not compress or rebound with out sticking. It was so bad that you could hear it.
The deal with the sag is kind of screwy.. I set my sag and accidentally measured the 105mm/4.125" from full droop and not from static sag. So the sag was set from sitting on the stand from sitting on the ground with me on it. When I realized that I was in my gear about to go ride it for the first time so I just loosened it up about one turn and ran it. I was just breaking it in anyways, riding slow. I'm going to re-do it all this week or weekend since the weather sucks. There's a fair amount of preload left too so I believe I can get it set. I spoke with FC over lunch and they also recommended a 5.2.
What are the options for spring conversions? Is it drop in cartridges? One-off work? Typical pricing? I have truly no clue so be detailed if you want. I'm kind of discouraged because I truly would have bought a Suzuki for 6k if I thought I was going to turn around and sink a lot of money back into a bike. I was hoping to buy the right shock spring and go rip ):
Lucky has inserts (~$1k I think). There are retrofit kyb inserts( $2k last I checked). Wp has cartridges for $1300 plus $130 for springs. Racetech and I think wp also had or have single side spring conversions that just replace the air cartridge.
He normally recommends the WP 6500 carts over Luckies as he feels the component quality is better and it’s a closed chamber set up vs the open Lucky kit. The Lucky carbons have been discontinued and replaced with the new Blackjacks.
You measured your sag correctly. “Race sag” is the difference between on the stand and with the rider mounted. “Static sag” is how much sag the bike has from its own weight, too much static and the spring is too light, too little and the spring is too heavy.
105 is a pretty ideal starting point, and likely the correct spring.
I have a del soggio spring conversion in one bike and k-tech in another. Using .88kg springs in each. I like the k-tech better, it’s a little more thought-out in its design and simplicity. If you watch here and Facebook you can get used single spring conversions for $250-$400. New they are $500-700.
If you end up parting with that 5.0 I’d buy it from ya
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