400ex stock rear shock rebound adjustment

[pnut420]

Ive seen alot of people confused about the stock rear shock. Most people (including myself) just think their is a compression adjustment on the top and that is it. But their is actually another adjustment for the rebound at the bottom of the shock on the opposite side of the top one.

Try this out and you will be surprised how much difference you can make over the factory adjustments.

[cdalejef]

Good tip Pnut!

[phebus]

What type of results would we see by adjusting in, versus adjusting it out?

[cdalejef]

Turning the adjuster in will slow down the shocks return to the top of the travel, turning it out will speed up the return. Most people like a pretty slow rebound to avoid kicking.

[pnut420]

Originally posted by Jeff@QuadShop
Turning the adjuster in will slow down the shocks return to the top of the travel, turning it out will speed up the return. Most people like a pretty slow rebound to avoid kicking.

Yeah it can make a big difference, my rebound was set real fast and would bounce after each landing.

My brother got an OEM rebuilt by Elka and it had the rebound way to slow, and it would want to bottom out, so either way stock or rebuilt stock shocks need to be dialed in and mosty people try it with the top adjustment only. :macho

[LazeR]

Originally posted by Jeff@QuadShop
Turning the adjuster in will slow down the shocks return to the top of the travel, turning it out will speed up the return. Most people like a pretty slow rebound to avoid kicking.

How far do you have to turn it to actually notice a difference! Avoid kicking like going across whoops right? what about softening up my front shocks too will that help ?


a little off topic, what is the best way to get a stock suspension dialed in for XC type riding ?

the adjusting mehcnaisms on the stock front shocks are almost worthless...I could never notice a difference when i adjusted them

[speedy400]

:eek: why have I not heard of this:eek: , thanks VERY much for the info, prolly saved me a good 70$. Anyone have any pics of the adjustment?thanks-darren

[RIDER11X]

Originally posted by LazeR

a little off topic, what is the best way to get a stock suspension dialed in for XC type riding ?

What I do, is I take the preload all the way to minimum just to where with the shock fully extended the spring is not moving around, and I turn it about two turns tighter from there. Then
I sit on the quad to set my preload to sag 2 1/2 to 3 inches from no load height. (approx. 1/3 of the travel.) After that I go to a test area to work on the compression and rebound. I get someone knowledgeable to watch me jump to see how much travel I use to get the compression set to where it will use almost all of the travel on about the biggest jump I will do, as the final test of the setting, then I fine tune the rebound on whoops to take the kick out of it.:cool:

[BeltSlipper]

ok, this is a stupid question. But how do you set the preload on PEP mass limited shocks? And a PEP rebuilt rear?
I'm learning as I go here, but I'm learning very slow.

[seven]

If your ebound is set to fast it will make the back of your quad feel like it is going to bounce over. If to slow you rear shock will not have enough time to extend before you hit the next bump.

[K_Fulk]

Originally posted by BeltSlipper
ok, this is a stupid question. But how do you set the preload on PEP mass limited shocks? And a PEP rebuilt rear?
I'm learning as I go here, but I'm learning very slow.

You set the preload with the ring above the spring. Loosen the top ring and adjust with the bottom ring. On the pep limited mass rebuild you should have about 3 and 1/8 of an inch of sag with you on it. Compared to it setting by its self.

[KASCHAK]

my preload is set pretty far down. is that why i cant jump high? but it rides good. very little movement in the rear. i would like to sofen up toe way it goes down but not so much that it bottoms out. but still enough proload to let me get some decent air.. what should i do?

[KY Woods Rider]

Originally posted by LazeR
a little off topic, what is the best way to get a stock suspension dialed in for XC type riding ?

The best method is to try a bunch of different settings and see what feels best to you. However, I listed my preferences below.

Rider specs: I weigh 185lb, have a fairly aggressive riding style, and have been riding in the woods for a bit over 16yrs. However, these settings have worked well for other people who are both lighter and heavier, as well as those who are a great deal slower. I haven't ridden with anyone running stock shocks who is faster though (they're smarter than me and don't even try to run stockers :D), so I don't know how they'd work for a faster rider.

Front: My front preload is backed off to the lowest notch. I did this to drop the quad as low as it will go for cornering purposes. The stock fronts are very easy to bottom on the stock settings, and this setting makes them even easier to bottom. However, I don't have any large jumps and I'm one of those riders that leans back and keeps the front end light through most of the rough sections, so it works okay for me. The really bad part is when going into a corner with large braking bumps, since you can't exactly keep the front end light going into a corner, you just have to hang on and put up with some bottoming if you run it in hard.

Rear: The preload is backed off as far as I felt comfortable with (about 4-5 threads are visible above the lock nut), compression is 1/2 turn in from full soft, and the rebound is backed out all the way (fast rebound). I set the preload this way for the same reason I did the front, to lower the center of gravity. The compression is backed out quite a bit because of the preload setting. Since the shock rides really low in the stroke with the light preload settings and is already into the stiffer portion of the travel, I was getting a really harsh spike on small sharp edged bumps with the compression on the stock setting, so I backed it out until it felt as smooth as possible on sharp edged hits. The fast rebound setting is what I found to work best for me, although many slower riders think it's way too fast and prefer a setting closer to stock. However, for me, if I slow down the rebound much at all, it starts packing severely in the rough sections and then it really does start bouncing around. If you have a habit of letting off when you get to a rough section, you might want to stay with the stock rebound setting or something similar, because my preferred setting will result in a severe kick if you let off the throttle in the middle of a series of big bumps. If you're one of those guys who simply pins the throttle and leans back when you hit the rough stuff, then you may like the fast rebound too.