jarelj
Site Sponsor
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2012
- Messages
- 2,159
- Location
- Omaha, NE USA
There's no magic formula other than making sure you're using the ideal range of travel available in the suspension for your riding conditions. We can usually run a little less sag for a track-only setup unless it's a really bumpy track. For the street you want a little more sag to account for larger bumps you encounter and give greater comfort. Personally, I shoot for rider sag numbers in the front in the 35-40mm range and in the rear 25-30mm, that's for the track, I'd go about 5mm higher than that for the street. With the proper springs, that should correspond to around 25mm of free sag in the front and 10mm in the rear (+/- 5mm or so). It's not an exact science, that's just to get you in the range, don't fret over a few mm one way or the other. The ratio between free sag and rider sag will give you the answer to whether you have the proper spring rates or not. If you have too little free sag for a given rider sag number, than the springs are too soft, and vice versa. So again, you start by measuring your sag and seeing if you can get in those ranges, or somewhere close, so you know whether you have the right springs. Once you get the right springs, and get the sag where you want it, then it's time to get the damping settings dialed in.
I do a lot of suspension setup for people at the track and it always seems to be everyone's natural inclination to go for the damping adjusters first. Often times I'll get someone who complains about harshness or wallowing or squatting or whatever, and they'll tell me they've been changing the compression and/or rebound settings trying to cure it, and then when we measure their sag it's way out of the ballpark so the damping changes they were making were for moot.
