Need better trail ride quality

[mean83sc]

i went riding yesterday and my bike is beating me up. The ride is horrible on it, and i never realized it till I rode some other quads and saw how rough mine is. Seems like the front end is real stiff so it hurts my wrists and arms. Then the rear suspension seems like its stiff at times but bottoms out easily too.

The suspension is totally stock, its a 99 400ex. I do mostly trail riding, no real jumping or racing. So I'm looking for a nice ride that will handle ok. And i'd rather not spend a ton.

Whats the best route here? Get the shocks reworked to my weight? I'm pretty clueless on suspension so throw some ideas.

Thanks

[Ruby Soho]

you can get the rear rebuilt

but the fronts are a lost cause

buy some 450r shocks

Originally posted by Ruby Soho
you can get the rear rebuilt

but the fronts are a lost cause

buy some 450r shocks

x2 i'm in the same boat you are in except I do decent sized jumps but they dont have a landing. Best thing I did was finally take a screw driver and mess with rebound and what not. It made the ride so much better I wondered why I was never tempted to adjust and dial in my shock before. Even that being done though its far from perfect. When I get the money i'm going with the 450r fronts and the revalve/respring all 3 shocks

[mean83sc]

Wheres some decent places online to get the rear shock done?

I'm going to check with a couple local places too.

C&D racing, GTThunder, Derisi...

I would go with C&D racing because they are our site sponsor, they do good work, and they arent as much as the others. Good luck finding a local place to revalve and respring a shock.

[08400EX]

Originally posted by mean83sc
i went riding yesterday and my bike is beating me up. The ride is horrible on it, and i never realized it till I rode some other quads and saw how rough mine is. Seems like the front end is real stiff so it hurts my wrists and arms. Then the rear suspension seems like its stiff at times but bottoms out easily too.

The suspension is totally stock, its a 99 400ex. I do mostly trail riding, no real jumping or racing. So I'm looking for a nice ride that will handle ok. And i'd rather not spend a ton.

Whats the best route here? Get the shocks reworked to my weight? I'm pretty clueless on suspension so throw some ideas.

Thanks

If you plan on getting 450R shocks as some suggest, budget another $400 for getting them revalved and resprung. If you just put them on your 400 without doing that it will be even stiffer and rougher riding than you feel your stock shocks are now.

The very cheapest route I can think of is getting a set of the 08 shocks off of Ebay (when they start to show up there). There is a major difference in the ride quality compared to earlier versions. I am speaking from experiance riding an 05 and now my 08 on the same trails within weeks of each other. I had 450R shocks on mine and took them off getting ready to ship them out to be reworked and never realized how plush the 08 shocks are (put the 450R on it when new before trail riding) This will not be the optimum long term solution, but probably the cheapest.

The next cheapest will be to respring your stock shocks, BUT that will probably be money wasted. That may give you a softer/plusher ride, but you will outgrow them quickly wanting more adjustment and control over compression and rebound.

As many others have said here before, finding a good used set of aftermarket shocks that match your weight/style will be your best bet. But you will have to be patient and wait for the right set/deal.

Other than that you wil have to bite the bullet and spend $200ish for 450R shocks and $400ish for the revale/respring. It all goes uphill money wise quickly for other options from there.

Knowing what I know now, and from learning from the even more experianced on this forum... If I were just getting shocks, I would spent the close to a grand ($999 retail) and get a set of the new multi-rate iShock P-8s set up for my trail riding style and weight. Heck by the time you spend $200ish for 450Rs and another $400ish for being reworked, at $600+ your not that far off from the P-8s. Even closer if you can find them on sale at RM or MS etc.

Concerning the rear, I think you should play around with the settings a little more. Now sure if my 08 is that different, but I have been able to dial it in pretty good for the areas I ride in and am pretty happy with it ... for the moment. Of course if that doesn't work, it's only ANOTHER $300 to get it reworked :-)