best air pressure and shock settings for all around

[BARRY]

right now i am running 8psis on 20 11 10 rears and 22 7 10 fronts itp xcrs. my rear shock compression is 2 turns out fromhard and my rebound is one turn out. i weigh about 250 does any one have better suggestions ? i do alot of trail riding and jump too:devil :devil

[Razorback]

your tire pressure seems high for those tires. i wouldn't run that high unless i was mx or flat track racing, and that would be on hard pack. you probably wouldn't want to go over 5-6 psi, given your size. if you were a little smaller, you would want to go with 4-4.5. higher psi on the trails makes it easier to get cuts in the tires, in my opinion.

your shock settings seem ok, but you might want to tighten the compression another half or full turn, again, given your size. i would think your rebound setting is spot on.

With 6 ply Maxxis Razrs and the regular Holeshot XCs (haven't tried the XCRs yet) I run roughly 7lb in most conditions. If it's perfect traction I run 7lb, for an all-out mud fest I run between 6.5-7 lb depending on how rocky it is, and for really rocky trails I run 7.5lbs. If you run beadlocks, you can drop down to 5 or 6lb and not have to worry about tearing the tire off the rim, but even with beadlocks I don't like to go under 6.5lbs for rocky trails to prevent getting a sidewall pinch or rolling the tire under the rim and sliding the sidewall across a rock. I sorta agree and I sorta disagree with RazorbackEXRider about higher air pressure making it easier to get cuts in the tire. If you hit a sharp rock with the sidewall, then higher air pressure can make it easier to get a cut in the tire because the tire can't absorb the hit and flex to avoid the cut. However, in many cases what happens is that you don't run enough air and the tire rolls under the rim as you corner hard, then you are basically sliding on the sidewall and are sliding it across rocks where the sidewall can be cut easily. So higher air pressure can work for you or against you, it just depends on the situation. What I do in most cases is just run a medium air pressure that will prevent the tire from rolling under the rim in hard corners, and then if I see I'm going to hit a sharp rock or stump, I just hit it dead center in the middle of the tread and lift up on that side of the quad to ease the impact.

For your weight, your shock settings seem pretty close, especially if you are jumping very much. For stock 400EX shocks in the woods, I run the preload on the front on the lowest setting and on the rear shock I turn the preload down until there is only about 4-5 threads showing above the locknut, then I turn the compression to full soft and back the rebound out all the way (which believe it or not will make it even softer). I do this mostly just to get the quad to sag as much possible in the turns to aid cornering. However, I weigh 175lbs and I rarely do jumps over 3 or 4ft with my woods quad (that's as high as I can get without pegging a tree upon landing:D). So for your weight, if you plan to do many jumps I would keep the preload and compression turned up fairly high. If you stay away from the jumps, you could turn it down some more and get it more stable in the corners.