Lowering the forks to make the front stand up less? That is opposite my intuition. Is that because before it was sinking too far, so you kept back, and it would pop up? So by biasing the bike rearward, you could stay on the front more without it collapsing? (trying to learn the nuances of tuning suspension)
This is more of a balance adjustment, because you’re lengthening the wheel base. If you’re talking about collapsing, that would be a suspension adjustment issue
Does this Translate to streetbikes? I come from a Dirt Background. I want more feel of the Rear. My rear feels stiff and slick.. but lowering your forks would I guess help Quicker Turn in? Higher fork height would Help what?
yes you would have the same effects, but I would be cautious sliding the forks up (shortening the wheel base) as that could create poor handling at higher speeds. the spring tension (sag) on the rear could also make a big difference for you.
Agreed: sounds like you have too much preload in the rear spring. Set sag (both ends) to something reasonable before assessing that you need to raise or lower the front end. Eg. I've seen bikes with way too much preload spacers in the front. (Happens when they are trying to make the bike 'stiff for racing,' and/or trying to combat dive in the wrong way, both common mistakes) They didn't need the forks raised, they needed to pull out preload spacers, so the front wasn't sitting high and popping up excessively. In your case, it sounds like someone was either a heavier rider but not buying a new spring, 2 upping, or _thought_ stiffening it excessively would improve its performance. Instead, it just made it hoppy and harsh. Combining a hoppy high riding rear + lowering the front would most likely end up with a dangerous combo where bumps make the bike want to dart or the rear to skip outward then try to highside you in a corner. (think of it like carrying something heavy up stairs... but instead of the strong person at the bottom, you put the weak person there. Every tip or bump shifts more weight onto the weak person, who almost collapses and wanders all over trying to recover, while the strong side is barely carrying any of the weight)
I gotta get this tool for my bikes. I have a 250x and 450x. Both are going to end up with aftermarket exhausts and race gas and I would love to keep them richer but have some more timing for the race gas.
I’m about to take my kx to a shop to get a map that kris keefer recommends for it on his website . If I was to go into a dealer with the screenshots of the settings and get them to load them in , how long would you expect them to take to do it . The guy on the phone told me it would be charged out at their hourly rate which would be about 200 bucks !!! Which would mean it’s Probbaly and hour and half job they are telling me . I seriously doubt it would take that long . And info would be great! Also , if a map is changed ? Does that just change for that particular coupler that’s in the bike ?
If they have the tool and know how to use it, it will only take a few minutes but they will also have a detach the adapter from the wiring harness which consists of removing the take to get to. Once detached it can stay free and will be accessible for the next use. Regardless, most business won’t change a map in any machine for less than $200. If I have friends that want a map changed they will give me $40-$50 but because they know it’s valuable and not everyone can do it
@@bubbapauli ok no worries , thanks for the info 👌. It sounds like it’s not too unreasonable then . I’ll take it in to them and get it done I’d say , thanks again . Also , have you had any issue with the super responsive bottom end off of about 5% throttle . Like on and off like a light switch ? This is the issue I’m trying to iron out . There’s no roll on it just comes on all of a sudden . Rode a 23 ktm 450 and it was so much easier to get out of corners and get power down
For supercross I prefer to make the bike even more aggressive right off the bottom than it already is but you can change that very dramatically with the mapping on this bike
Why would it settle into a rut better if you made the steering angle shallower!? You did the same thing as increasing your sag, which would have made the bike more straight line stable and less likely to want to hold a rut through a turn. Am I wrong on this?
When the wheel base is shorter the bike turns tighter, easier but when it’s longer it will follow a rut easier with less resistance. Yes you can achieve the same thing with the sag but a lot of times we want to leave the sag in a certain spot to keep a specific rear end feel
@@bubbapauli Thanks for that explanation. Keeping the same rear feel makes a lot of sense. Do you mostly ride tight tracks? I'm wondering if your normal setting is a bike that likes to dart more than most of us have ours set.
If I raised or lowered my forks a full half of an inch, I doubt I could tell any difference at all. As far as " a couple of millimeters ", no way. This guy probably couldn't tell either.
I thought the same thing, I was having a hard time following corners on my 2017 crf450r, put forks up flush… Big difference, I didnt think as a average rider that I would notice, but its true…
That's what the mind would think, but the reality is even an incompetent gumby newish rider can easily tell the difference between 2mm in the front, even if they don't know how to describe or even what changed. Just that it changed and feels different. "its not kicking as much" "it feel better in that corner" What people are thinking is, my own weight or a bump makes way bigger difference than that. Partly true. But how does the bike react: When your weight comes off? (so the bike is free to shift where it wants to go) When it's landing with momentum? (so it's much more than just simple weight) When you hit a rock while following a rut? (unless you are gifted with xray vision) Can you mitigate that with body positioning? Yes, but you have to move more to do that, and if you aren't always in the right spot, it's going to show that ugly behavior. 2mm can easily be the difference between a bike that wants to follow a rut or pop out when you hit something. You already had your body where it needed to be to keep the front bit in but not too low, now you hit that rock and the right body position just rapidly changed _because the bike isn't balanced._ For a moment, everything is wrong, but if you try to correct for that, a moment later it's changing rapidly back the other way. It's going to be hard to flick your body rapidly enough to _compensate for a bike problem._ Out of the rut you go. Hitting some braking bumps before a turn? Maybe some whoops (even at slow-medium speed)? You will notice the difference between a balanced bike and one where the front wants to pop up, causing extra rear load/hooking effect, which leads to extra front impact, which pops up even more... power teeter-totter. Since it's a feedbacking oscillation, a small change in the right direction has a huge quelling effect (the front no longer causes a worse rear reaction so the cycle doesn't start). Or the front loads too much and sinks in. That can go bad a couple ways. Would you like to approach every whoops section expecting your bike to try to endo you?
Keep sharing the practical content like this! Really appreciate the brevity of this video. Too many folks have 10 min videos and cover less advice than what you did in 4 mins. Keep it up!
I bought a YZ250f with a lowering link installed by the previous owner. He also brought the forks up to match the lowered rear end. This caused headshake that I believe threw some dirt up into the fork seal which I took care of and I went back to the standard ride hieght front and rear to fix the issue.
