Howdy folks! My 630 has 5K on it and after an extended day on the trails yesterday I felt like the suspensions gotten soft, seems to bottom out easier then before. My buddy rode my bike and watching him on a couple smaller jumps it looked like the suspension was giving a lot more then what I remember or what I saw on his bike. No, I don't do doubles or crazy tabletops off 5ft ramps but I do like a hop or two at the local off road park and I don't want a bottoming out 630. My questions are..... What settings are people using in stock form (clicks and turns on the front and rear shocks....yes I know its weight dependent, just a ball park for a sub 200lb rider)? What upgrades/rebuilt's are people doing? Are people removing the 1" restrictor from the front forks as part of the rebuilt? What's a rough cost estimate on a rebuilt vs new? What brands are/do people recommend?......WP, Sachs, ohlins, etc Thank you for your time, Cheers!!
Buying a different "brand" of suspension is a BIG undertaking. You generally can't/don't just bolt on WP or Ohlins bits, you revalve the stock stuff. Most guys have someone like LTR (http://www.lt-racing.com/) do a revalve. Some people need springs too. Suspensions, in general, don't all-of-a-sudden get softer. If you dumped all the oil out it would get softer, but you'd also have a quart of fork oil on your forks, wheel, and brake, so it's not like you wouldn't know. Start with the clickers in the middle-ish and adjust to your liking. Many guys run with the high speed damping turned out all the way in the rear.
LTR here. I had the adjustable clickers added prior to sending my forks in and didn't notice a ton of adustability between the settings. Les softened the springs to 46's I believe and opened the valving a bit. The result was that the bike glides over rough terrain. The negative is on larger jumps it will bottom sometimes. I will admit my technic is questionable sometimes though. Adding a bit more fork oil has made this better. In retrospect I'd opt for the extra inch of travel. Some of my bottoms are "light" and not smashing. An extra inch and I might not bottom. Money wise the rebuild is the answer. These fork are pretty buildable in the right hands. Good luck. LTR has the pricing on there site.
LTR did the whole bit for me, and I have the build sheet. I will send you a copy if you will PM me with your email. It would be nice to have it done before DV! In short though, Front springs .46 Kg, Rear 5.8 Kg (a little light for a full load) and I will change up to a 6.2 for a loaded bike. The front fork travel was increased by the one inch that Husky took out, clickers added and revalved all around. Much nicer now! I've only bottomed the forks once, on a fairly extreme obstacle, so I know they are "right". Without the extra inch I am sure it would occur more often. 6.2 on the rear spring is going to be a compromise, and may be a bit stiff for solo, but not too bad I think. Huskyfly and I are about the same weight if memory serves. Sub 200 anyway, but not by much! 'Workin' on that.
I'm pretty sure it was a 6.4, and way too stiff. When I'm loaded I carry Wolfman saddlebags and a duffel, so pretty heavy. I set the WR250R up for that from the start and it's good for the trail with a load. I had Les set the Husky for a plush ride with a light load, and he did it. However, when I load it a bit, I get too much static sag, so will have to compromise and stiffen it up a bit. The front end is good either way though. I rode into two steep gullies that were side by side across the trail in Wyoming on the Forever West ride this year and the front end just soaked it up, but did bottom on the second one. I was mentally preparing to endo, but instead just motored on thru. Good suspension will save you a trip to the hospital and your bike a trip back home on the trailer! Worth every penny!
Mine is the stock 6.4 and almost seems too soft to me. I weight 150 in gear and have the rack/bags (but lost 14lbs of exhaust). It surprises me how much sag I get just standing the bike up (standing next to bike), looks like 1/3 of the travel goes away. I have the preload ~2/3 to full tight. I guess it surprised me to see you're running a 5.8 I'm def not a suspension expert. .
I (nor my suspension guy) can't find a good reference for the rear linkage ratio on the 610s (or 630s). However, assuming it's in the ballpark of all the other Huskies,6.4 is definitely on the stiff side for someone your (our) weight. I weigh 170, and the only reason I kept the stock rate on my shock is because I also use the bike for supermoto race, and I want to compromise with being stiffer for that. Otherwise I'd probably run a 5.8-6.0. My WR (and my DRZ) has a 5.4, I think, and it's about right (lighter bikes obviously, but thus the 5.8). What about your 6.4 "seems" too soft?
Before I sent my suspension off to be worked on I carefully measured static and rider sag; don't know any other way to do it. It definitely fell outside all of the guidelines for sag setup. It is about perfect now without a load. Get some help with measuring and see what you come up with. As I recall, there was very little static sag at all with the stock spring.
I say it seems soft because of surprising amount of static sag. Your right though, only way to know is break out a tape measure, guessing is worthless. .
If you have a lot of static sag for the correct race sag, the spring is too STIFF. If you have little (or no) static sag for the correct race sag, the spring is too SOFT. (Think of rate as how much the suspension position changes when you change the load. Too stiff means it doesn't change much in response to load, so static and race sag will be near each other).
Hey Ken, I'm evaluating options at the moment. There are a couple good suspension tuners around the northern California area (not opposed to sending them off LTR tho) and I have couple people who have had work done. I like other have posted, wasn't sure what seemed like the right setup. Do you guys have a couple setting on the stock suspension I should try, clicks and turns on the factory setup? I'll probably wait till after DV to do any of this. I'm taking the bike out the next couple weeks to the off-road parks, I'll get a better feel for where I sit with all this. Last question. Is there a milage when people generally are breaking down the setup and re-valving there bikes?
Well, can't help with stock settings as I sent my stuff out right after buying the bike. As far as when, it's whenever you want it to get better to ride! See you in DV!
