250-500cc 2009 WR250 Long Term Update

I bought a set of 4.8 springs from Halls to replace the 4.5s that were stock. I went with a 5.6 rear spring.. I also weigh 210 lbs no gear. My 4.8s had -3 mm preload and would blow through the travel because of some inherent problems with the valving. I sent them to LTR and he corrected the preload and re-valved and corrected so flaws that would cause them to occasionally blow through the travel and put me on the ground with no warning. In hindsight I would have bought the springs, skf seals and the re-valve from Les at LTR in one fail swoop and been done with it. I'm happy with the bike now, it has restored some confidence and I'm going faster without wondering if the forks will betray me and put me on the ground saying WTF just happened. The re-valve I got from LTR works really good in the woods especially in the tight technical stuff but if I try to hit doubles on an MX track doesn't cut it. It actually soaks up so much of the harsh stuff that it's hard to preload it enough to get air to clear obstacles. (good in the woods bad on an mx track)

If your riding style is smooth momentum and staying in contact with the ground the 50mm zokes will serve you well once re-valved.

On my 09 wr 250 I used a 5.6 rear spring and .48 front springs but , I upgraded my forks and installed 2010 CR 125 kyb's with a revalve on both. Worked good. I weigh the same as you also. Still have the Zokes if anyone is interested.

I don't have a lot of money to spend on this bike, so I'm hoping to get away with just springs and oil and clickers for now. Maybe I should look into some progressive springs for the forks?

Then I would try running .48 in the front and the 5.6 rear like recommended. Grab the recommended fork oil and set at recommended height. When you install the springs makes sure they have a few mm of preload on them and if they don't then install some spacers to get there.

If you do what kan3 says there will be a big improvement over the stock forks with the wrong springs. One thing that made an improvement on my 50 zokes was the SKF seals. I did them when my OEM seals started leaking and could tell that there was a lot less stiction which made them feel more plush on the small stuff.

Just to clarify my statements above, I am going to buy the heavier springs. But, I wonder what I should do with the oil? If stock is a 7.5 weight should I go to 10 weight? Or maybe mix 10 and 7.5 50/50 to get an effective 8.75 weight? Thanks for the help so far.

Keep the stock oil. If you want to go with a different oil then compare the cst of the oil to make sure you buy something similar. Changing weight is something you would do effect damping which is something you don't know needs addressing yet because of soft springs.

I use 5w Maxima in the blue bottle but if you're going to leave the valving stock you might want to stay with 7.5w. I tried 10w when my forks were stock and it didn't make things better or worse I just had to change the cilckers a couple of clicks.

I contacted Halls. They're recommending a 6.2 for the rear and .48 for the fronts. What do you think about the 6.2 for the rear? What's the stock rate for the rear?

I think the stock rate is 5.4, you can go to Halls website and look it up in the parts manual link. I think 5.8-6.2 would work depending on your riding style. I would have gone 5.8 or 6.0 on mine but I already had a longer 5.6 spring off a GasGas Ohlins shock. I'm 6'6" and for some reason I have more trouble bottoming the front 4.8s, maybe it's a leverage thing but I've had to increase the comp clickers 5 clicks from center and still use all the travel on a regular basis. Bottoming out is really more a function of dampening and not springs. You need to get the sag numbers right with the springs and then it's all about the valving from there.

I finally ponied-up the $s to buy the springs. When I pulled the old front springs out, I found a large spacer below them. It's about 1.5" (just a guess). The new .48s were just slightly shorter than the stock springs. Maybe a mm or two. I just put that existing spacer back in. I'm getting a little spring rub on compression of the fork. So I'm looking for advice on how much rider sag I should be trying to get up front?? I remember seeing somewhere that there is a general rule for forks like maybe 25% of travel for sag?

BTW, guys, thanks for all the feedback here. I really appreciate it.

Thanks! I could never find this thread for some reason.