Recon thanks for the links (actually I lost most of the good ones I had from a hard drive crash earlier this year, real bummer!). If anyone else has some post them.

The works one is very basic though informative. The one from off road is a little more "hands on" and a very good and easy to understand basic introduction to suspension settings tuning etc. and I liked it more than some others that may be confusing to someone who is new to all of this, but in time they will still need to better understand it all. There is similar but more detailed info on www.mx-tech.com but unless they have updated with the new info on quads it is designed for dirt bikes. This isnt actually a bad thing since many of us also ride bikes but there is some differences beyond the extra wheels. You can use the adjustment procedure on the rear for comp and rebound since its very close to the same but the front and sag settings are very different so be carefull not to get confused.

I had originaly tried to set up my aftermarket suspension like you would a dirt bike and it was horrible [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] A quad is a lot more like a car than a bike though it shares some of the same principles. The idea of getting the most plush ride with just a hint of bottoming on the largest jump in a certain race etc still pertains to both as well as the packing and swapping problems with rebound but the sag and ride height issues are very very different.

One of the questions I cant get any of the "pros" to answer in understandable language is the relationship of sag to ride heights and weight bias (front to rear etc) and which is more important to obtaining what etc.

Once you have found the best or better comp and rebound settings and have an acceptable amount of sag you are not finished but seriously just begining. Just because you have these things set to an acceptable level you may still not be happy because the quad can be riding poorly due to too much or little ride height, un even ride height front to rear or even unmatched sag front v/s rear. Plus there seems to be a relationship between all these things as well.

So you see this is where it gets complicated and also where the pro set up machines gain an additional advantage over the "average joe" or novice. Problem is that though I have some input on this I dont have all the needed answers and am still looking for them.

I have found out the hard way that with the wrong spring rates it can be impossible to get a proper front to rear ride height while maintaining an acceptable level of sag and still have a plush riding quad. There was a trade off required between a much too high rear that destroyed everything from traction to cornering in order to be around the 30% mark or then if you raised the front to match it was both too high and also much too harsh. If anyone with some experience in this stops in this thread I will be happy to get into it more but for now lets just say it took over a year and countless phone calls and different tests on settings etc for me to be 90% happy with the investment I had made in suspension and still needed another $200.00 to get to this point. Now I cant wait to see what it take to find the remaining 10%.

 

Elka seems to be serious about improving their market share and the sport utility area seems to have been neglected by many shock companies for too long now . There has been some new stuff coming out from most of the MFG's lately and thats a great thing.

Since this is the brand I have I know that its a quality product thats very well made but like anything else its not 100% perfect either. I have had discussions and some very heated with riders who like or have other brands and when its all said and done not one of them is perfect but all do have their little areas that they excel in. It appears that way too much of the testing for many of the shock mfg's is done by paying customers. I know I may get some argument on this (especially by some of the PEP loyalists is the past is to repeat itself lol) but having excelent customer service and helping us customers to get what we want or close to it is less expensive in the long run than testing every possible combination of shock and quad and rider etc as part of R&D.

Funny thing is that now that many of the quad mfg's have produced new machines that are out performing the stock 400ex Elka seems to have finally figured out how to make the EX spot on. Maybe this is part of the reason I am wanting to hold onto this quad a little longer, and yes thats because its riding extremely better than ever b4 (and I am looking for more improvement LOL)

Hopefully all the shock people get it right sooner on the utilities [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

*watching*

*reading*

*learning*

I have rezzie Ohlins on the Blaze and I have rezzie LT Ohlins for my MX setup, but they might be soon traded in on a set of Elka quadrates. I'm watching this thread for setup tips, I understand the principles of what the adjustments do but the combination is the key factor I am sure. Thanks to 440EX4ME for wanting to help those of us who need it.

Zack

 

Here is something stolen from EXriders... I actually found it on YFZ Central so I have no idea who wrote it.. credit to you if you did!

For a basic shock setup you want to start with ride height. First start out by putting your quad on a stand and measuring the distance from the axle to a fixed place on the frame ( like the grab bar). Then take the quad off the stand, put on all your gear and sit on the bike in a natural riding position and take another measurement. You should use up about 30% of your travel in this sag. If after you set this up and you get off the bike and the spring tops with no sag that means you are going to have to change springs to a stiffer one bc you were running to much preload to compensate for the soft spring. Your sag with no rider should be only about 5% of your travel. A stock 400EX has 9.1" of rear travel. Your ride sag with rider should be around 2.73in more or less depending on setup. ( on MX you may want more sag for handleing were as GNCC may want less sag for clearance).

Now to set up front suspension sag. You want to do the same thing with the bike off the ground and then when you sit on it. The only difference is now you want to have 20% of the travel for sag. A stock 400ex has 8.2" of front travel so sag should be 2.46". Depending on how much travel you get with your a arms and shocks will determine the sag. Shocks with more travel can have more sag. So aftermarket shocks will run more sag and have more travel.

Next is setting up compression. Compression controls how much force it takes to compress the shocks.Compression depends on what type of riding you do. Motocross and supercross may require stiffer suspension while harescrambles, trails and GNCC will require a softer more plush ride. What you want to do is set up the compression so you use all the travel of the shock without bottoming out hard or just barely bottoming. With the setting too soft the suspension will feel mushy and setting it to hard the shocks will feel harsh and you will feel every little bump you hit because the shock isn't absorbing anything. To get a proper compression setting put the shocks on full soft. Gradually ride faster and adjust the shocks so they are not mushy and absorb the bumps. Keep going untill you nake several adjustments and reach your riding level and have the proper compression. it is okay if you bottom on the biggest jumps you do. You want to use all of your travel for the best ride, but dont let the shocks get beat up or damaged.

After you do compression you can adjust the rebound. Rebound controls how fast the shock returns after being compressed. A soft rebound means faster and hard rebound dampning rebounds slower. There are 2 ways to set up the rebound. First find a nice set of whoops. You can either start on full soft or full hard and go through the whoops at a slow pace. Gradually go faster and then adjust the rebound untill you dont get bucked or the shock doesnt pack up. Then go faster and faster while making adjustments untill you reach your riding speed through the whoops with the correct rebound where you dont get bucked or the shock doesnt pack up. Packing up is when the shock hits a bump compresses and then doesnt get to rebound before hitting the next bump and eventually you have no more travel.

That is a basic way to set up your shocks but specific applications will need different tuning.Big indoor Supercross tracks or freestyle riders will need much stiffer shocks from the big jumps and perfectly groomed non rutted tracks and smooth ramps but would not be good on the out door mx tracks because they can not handle the ruts and little bumps with out being very harsh. GNCC quads will need softer compression to soak up the rocks and roots and be plush.

Just thought I would add it to the discussion!

 

Zack,

thanx for the kind words there bud but add my name to the list of those needing help also. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I am not sure on the c-dales but the quadrates were part of my problem with the initial set up. Not that theres any problem with the quad rate as a product as it actually performs very well but on the 400ex it had so much more usuable travel than the rear (remember the rear had some issues lol) it was just hard to get them to work together and not have one pushing the other too much. Hope that made sense [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I just got the Quadrates and immediately sold my Moto Ohlins, the trade cost me 50 bucks [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Hopefully I can get them dialed in - my rear is an Ohlins with the Elka ZPS conversion.

I need A-arms first to even give it a try on setup, but I can read til then [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Any opinions on that setup?

Even if you don't have the answers, 440EX, I thank you for helping us find them [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Nope that one wasnt mine LOL but I do remember it well [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I am allmost certain it was predator36 but that could have been another thread.

Do remember that you should refer to this stuff as borrowed as I wouldnt want to see the owner or any of his "inner circle" crying on this site as they have on some others. There not the best at accpting their faults over there and thats why you may see that place refered to things like exdiapers, exliars, exlosers, crybabyriders, BSriders and my favorite Censoredriders on various other sites.

I know all this stuff is pretty much avail "legally" to any member, author or site owner etc but I think we would all agree its easier just to avoid a bunch of BS from such sissy boys [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Anyhow that is more great info and I remember another thread I think was on the same site that was getting seriously into setting things up with indepth measurement methods and lowering struts etc but someone got to the author and like something from conspiracy theory he just stopped cold. Maybe sometime in the future I will be able to get him to finish his thoughts here but I am not very hopefull.

Well this info you found is excelent and anyone looking to set things up should read it over carefully, but it still leaves few voids. The first is how to figure your total travel to be able to know what 30% of it is when setting sag. Sure you can go to the OEM info for a stock set up but what about those quad rate long travel fronts your looking at? Second is once you get that info when your setting up the front there will be an amount of travel and action that is much different than even the normal triple rates and the sag set up adds to the confusion of where to measure the front height. I dont mean on what part of the bumper etc but once you get the quad rates installed you will be able to lift the front end and when you drop it will settle to a certain level, now when you push down and release it will settle to a different level so which is the right one??????????? Theres more but you can see how things get interesting.

Another one that has been one that I am after is the relationship between the correct amount of sag, ride height and preload and which should be most important and how it affects what you want from the others. It can sound simple till you try to put it into testing and see how much of a difference it makes. If we dont get any real pro's to answers some of this I may actually find some answers as I expect to have this figured with another 6+ hours of ride evaluation and or another 3+ hours of actual testing, but dedicating this amount of time to testing and fine tuning rather than riding could take months [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]




This changes with aftermarket suspension but to what % I seriously dont know. Also remember that when trying to lower your ride height these % numbers will change slightly, and spring selection as well. Zero pre load or self sag springs will change these numbers also. Getting the proper info is the problem I am speaking of.

Here we see that with an aftermarket set up you can have more sag and different 5 numbers but what are they? how will say a quadrate long travel set up affect this info?

As an example I have approx 11" of travel with the LT +1 set up on the front but have considerable more than 20% sag. For the longest time I went nuts trying to get the ride height higher and the sag reduced but when it was closer to what I thought it should be it seemed to ride harsh and that the springs were too "soft" as discussed above on the rear set up. Well something not discussed in most set up listings is how the other end or rear in this case can affect the settings on the front end. Though I had complaints on the performance of the rear I was continuing to blame the supposed soft fronts for the problems of setting up the ride heights. Thru many discussions with both the shock and a-arm mfg I decided to accpet even if only temporary that the fronts were not the problem (I still am not 100% on this but more on that later) and that the rear ride height was too high from a too stiff spring. Well after 2 spring changes (one was way too soft) and a new linkage it has improved a lot and though still not 100% and my wanting more etc is still there it performs like a new machine all over again.

With these changes the quad has corrected much of the traction problems and handles corners and especially the rough stuff much better. So low and behold the fronts that had too much sag were not the whole problem, but I am out countless hours and another 200.00 to get to this point.

I am pretty certain that the fronts are still a little soft and will need updates to slightly heavier or stiffer springs as with out adding preload to the front where it becomes slightly harsh the front will roll more than I like in hard cornering. Believe me I am happy to be where I am at this point but this will be checked out or I will try out new springs during the next rebuild etc.

So you see there is a lot more to it than just setting sag %.

BTW I dont want to get anyone nervous and zack will have a complete different situation with the cannondale but on the 400ex there is more needed to get it to perform to its fullest potential. This is sort of true for any quad but I know from experience that much of the rear ride height problems just dont exist on the cannondale, and it sets up very nice on the rear right out of the box. I have a friend with an 03 dale with elkas triple fronts and dual rear all SSD and it sat so nice when first installed I was cursing him. Like any new shocks they werent perfect and needed to be adjusted but like most riders with new shocks they rode so much better than stock he is still waiting to adjust them , but that fine with me as I need any advantage I can find.

 

Opinions?

Sweeeet deal [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] and if or when set up right you will be very happy and maybe look like this [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] I know I was and yes even before I had a clue anything could be better too.

No problem on getting or giving the answers I know or know where etc.


I dont want the guys who may find a lot of this too technical or what ever to get scared away either. If you have questions first look at the info here and if after that you still have them then post them so you can get some answers. Most of the info or theory will work for most any type of quad or shocks but with most stockers you are more limited. Try some of the things listed on here and the various sites and make a few adjustments to see how things work or how much less fatigued you can be with a better set up etc. (even with stock shocks if there adjustable) cause its amazing how much less you may get banged around.

 

Also, don't be afraid to use your compression and rebound damping adjustments to fine tune your suspension on a ride-to-ride basis! I have my Works shocks on my 400's set up for bashing big desert whoops, where getting bucked off from to fast rebound damping can be a disaster! But, if I happen to be going trail riding, I prefer the suspension be a little more lively. So, I just back the compression and rebound out a couple of clicks, and get faster responding suspension.

 

Good point Recon.

Way too many people dont touch the adjusters due to fear of messing it up and are missing on a much better ride etc.

Another point to add is how you can just count down the clicks or turns on any changes and record them that way you can allways return to where it was.

Actually without touching the preloads you cant really screw up much and once you get to feel whats worse and then whats better your on your way to getting it right.

I have allways kept a log of any changes I have made and the effect it had. If adjusting preload I would allways record the new ride heights, if only comp or rebound changes I would normally record only the ride changes, but allways record it so you can reflect on the info later. This is a must for anyone trying to "dial it in".