I read an article that said rear preload should be approx 30% of shock travel and front preload should be approx 20% of shock travel. I ran into an issue with this on my 450R though. The rear preload was preset perfect at 3" ( 9" shock), however the front preload, was way off. The stock preload was maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch and I am a 210lb person. Even after adjusting the preload (sag height) to the max, I was only getting a little over an inch of preload. The front shock is 8.4 inches, so I should have gotten 1.7 inches of preload. At best I've got 1.25 inches ( 15% at this point)... Maybe the shocks will wear more over time and I will get more preload, but this seemed a bit odd to me. I'm not the heaviest guy in the world, but there are definitely alot of riders who weigh less than me and won't see as much sag height in the front due to their weight.

Anyways, I found it odd that the 450R shocks did not allow for more travel within the front preload. It is my guess that by not having more weight in the front of the quad, the front shock may be just a hair to strong???? They seem to work good though and adjustments to the rebound and compression actually work and make noticeable changes.

Please let me know your thoughts....

 

The 450's front end may not be one that follows the "textbook" rule of 20% sag. I am 190 lbs., and if I tried to get 1.7" of sag out of it, there isn't enough thread on the adjusters to let me do it. So far, I have left mine at the stock settings, and it has taken everything that I have thrown at it, and done remarkably well! It does seem very stiff when you push on it, but it preforms VERY WELL out on the trail. I am going to ride mine stock a while, before I do anything radical.

Theoretically, the front should track better with a softer preload, but so far the front doesn't "push" at all, so I am going to wait and see how I like it after some more riding.

 

Thanks for the info.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that has seen that and wondered. My shocks are set up with following parameters, not 100% how close they are to stock (set by Honda) as I made adjustments after riding but did not pay close attention to the rebound and compression initial settings.

I set the shocks' rebound and compression to the settings per the manual, you know full to the hard and then back 1 5/8 or 1 7/8 turns. This is from memory, so fairly close. I also set the preload at this time. The rear shock was perfect at 3" of sag height, no adjustment necessary. I adjusted the front shock to the max preload and got approx 1 to 1 1/4 inches of preload.

I went riding again and my friend and I hit some whoops and we jumped off of a ledge that was about 5' tall. It was going from a hard flat dirt packed surface to a hard packed flat dirt surface. I did bottom out on the landing but not horrible, I adjusted the rebound and compression 1 full turn to the hard and made the jump again. There was a very noticeable improvement on the landing, it actually felt pretty good for that type of a jump. Flat to flat on a hard surface always has some impact when it is at that height. I might have been able to go with a half turn and had a slightly softer landing, but I was in a hurry. Ha The shocks seemed to soak up the whoops a lot better after the adjustment.

I think I'll leave them at this setting for now. It is nice to know that I still have plenty or room to harden or soften the shocks.

Of course when I say hard - I mean setup for harder terrain and soften- for easier terrain and more responsiveness

This is the way it is referred to in the manual, but a lot of people refer to it just the opposite. Easy for me though, if the terrain is harder-adjust towards the H, if the suspension needs to be softened - turn to the S

Even I can figure that one out.

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

The rear seems pretty good so far. The stock rebound damping is WAY TO FAST! Bucked my rear end about a foot high in the big whoops. I think they do that so people sitting on it in the showroom will think it is really plush. Turned it in one whole turn, and will probably go even a little more before things are done.