Suspension settings for bad roads - 5thGen

Hey suspension gurus,
Lately I've been venturing further from where I usually ride. Many of these new roads are winding, twisting, up and down, through mountain ranges, valleys and ridges and in some areas are poor, potholed, cracked and unevened surfaces. It's giving me a pain in the back and the butt. Great locations otherwise. I have standard suspension on my 5th Gen. I'm not going to replace any suspension components, the VFR has very low mileage and is otherwise functioning well. I may look at a seat with better support but first I'd like some suggestions on suspension settings. What would you do?

I'm of the larger size at 1.8 metres (6ft) tall and 90kg (198 lb), I don't carry any further weight on the motorcycle.

To start off with for these roads, I backed right off the spring pre-loads, both front and rear, and for the rear shock I set the rebound damping to soft. As I mentioned before, with these settings, the roads are giving me pain in the back and butt...

The front-end seems ok, it's the rear thats more of a problem, I don't know whether it's bottoming out or not, it's often jarring. Going into blind corners, which many are, going up and down the mountain passes, where there may be repair patches and cracks in the bitumen are a particular problem.

What settings would you adjust the forks and rear shock to if you were travelling these poor roads?

Thanks for your time.

 

Not much you can do on the standard suspension.
It is badly undersprung, and damping is way off.
The best you can do is fully wind your front spring to the hardest, and your rear to about half or even more, just check your sag when on bike.
It is harsh because both ends are bottoming out.
On corners, you are propably only using the last inch of suspension.

 

Check your tire pressure first...

 

I'm impressed with this group's restraint, the OP posted this over 4 hours ago and nobody has said anything about Jamie Daugherty. I, however, think 4 hours is more than long enough. So here it is: http://www.daughertymotorsports.com/index.html

(and yes, OZ VFR is right, you really can't adjust your way to a comfortable solution with the OEM suspension setup)

In December 2016 (just 3 months ago now) when I purchased my totally stock '99 5th Gen I found it was difficult to put the bike on its center stand. This was due to way too much sag in the suspension (like OZ VFR said, with this amount of sag the bike only had a little bit of suspension travel left once I put my body weight on it). So, naturally, if you see that you have too much sag you wind in spring pre-load, right? So I did that and ended up with a really rough ride.

 

I will endorse what Oz and Greg have said. When I first got my VFR I was disappointed in the ride quality due to the damping especially in the fork, being mushy and jolting at the same time. If you were to spend about $700 in parts (shock, springs, fork cartridges) you will get the benefit from that every time you ride, for however long you keep the bike (and VFR's are forever, right???).

 

Really rough roads take the weight on your feet not your arse. Reset your suspension. If it's a pot hole there is nothing you can do about the suspension. It will get jarred regardless.

 

All great advise here. Yep start with tire pressure then work your way from there.. Yea, the stock suspension is pretty meh. But rough roads make any suspension setting hard to get around the inevitable. We have up here a great road but due to wash outs, re pave patched work, frost heaves and the like, makes it a chore to be happy on the bike, even with great suspension bits, I kinda start riding like a dirt bike, stay lose on your bum a bit more leg and foot work make it better, still? ? Setting the adjustment to soft actually makes it worse. Jaring is a hard thing to avoid, maybe if the Bum hates most of that, one might look at seat options. I like the idea of seeing what Jamie can do for you, but being I didn't hear about physical improvements, told me you weren't looking for that advise. But yea he's a wiz with the VFR suspension.

 

Also can go DYI with Jamie's inserts for a little savings.Think if your goin to keep this ride spending $$ on suspension should be your first priority
JMO of course
Read all the write ups on his work, not one negative response.
Good luck


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Gday, didn't realised there were all your replies, thanks. I'm not receiving emails for posts to the thread, have to see what's with that.

Great advice all around!

Anyway, since you guys think the suspension is probably bottoming out I'll start out by turning up the pre-load on front and rear to the max, and go out there on a known local bad road and see what that feels like compared to soft settings.

What about the rebound dampening? Should I set it midway?

The tyres are what were on the VFR when I bought it, hardly any wear. They're Dunlop Sportmax gpr. I have 36 psi in the front and 38 psi in the rear. I haven't changed the pressures for the bad roads. Do those pressures sound about right? There's no pressure indication on the tyres, that I can see.

There's a local guy whose been recommended who does individualised custom seats. I'll go talk to him see what the cost is. If I recall it's less than half of a Sargent. I've seen his work, it looks good.

Terry, I'd spend $700 on a better all-round suspension setup, where would those components be sold from in Au? It was when I was browsing suspension components, the cost of the rear shock replacements I found were around $1500 that's what put me off that idea. I'm interested in your alternative.

I'll take a browse of the daugherty site next.

Yep, the VFR is a keeper.

 

I was referring to buying parts from Daugherty and installing them yourself. Don't be put off by the distance involved, that's what freight companies are for. IIRC you would be looking at $420 for a shock, $95 for springs, around $120 for a compression valve and you can leave the rebound valve for later and just reshim. Or spend more on adjustable damping cartridges, or go cheap and buy the bits from a bent VTR1000 fork.


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Lots of options there.

Haven't had a chance to adjust the suspension yet, might do that tomorrow.

The rear shock strut at Daugherty's, for the VFR 800, what bike is that originally from?

 

The shock comes from a CBR929 Fireblade, with modifications to make it 5mm longer than the stock VFR, a rider-weight specific spring and modified internal damper parts. Some have used the CBR929 shock without mods by making an extended top clevis mount (the bit bolted to the top of the stocker below), and accepting the springing and damping settings for what they are.

 

Thanks for the info and photos Terry.
The shock mounting point at the top, it looks like an adaptor checked into a recess and bolted onto the stock 929 mounting point. Is that correct? Is that where the 5mm extended length is obtained? Is the travel of this shock the same, less or more than stock VFR?

 

AFAIK, the 929 shock is physically quite a bit shorter than the stocker, so the adaptor makes up for this, and then Daugherty adds another 5mm for added ride height, ground clearance and lighter steering. The stock shock is milled to create a recess that the adaptor mates tightly to. As for the travel, I don't exactly know, but I can tell from my photo that the 929 shock travel is certainly not less than the VFR, may be the same or just slightly more.

 

Thanks once again for the info Terry. This shock is a far cheaper solution to many of the costly new shocks I've seen which are priced at least half of what I paid for my VFR!

Still haven't adjusted the suspension nor ridden it since a ride to the tablelands and back. I've been enjoying the different pleasures of my CX500, now this motorcycle can take a pothole, any bad roads you want to venture down and even dirt road corrugations. Like riding a comfortable armchair!

Off topic, strangely I'm still not recieving notifications of new posts to the posts I'm subscribed to, anyone else experiencing this?

 

It can be slow to receive notifications sometimes.
My first real road bike was a CX500, I have fond memories and covered lots of long distance country rides with it.
It had a bit of a cult following as a tourer back in its day and rightly so.
Once the VFR is properly set up it is actually not bad.
I also have the JD 929 rear shock, and while not perfect, it is miles better than stock and close to the more expensive shocks.
The front will also be miles better with correct springs (standard is severely undersprung) and throwing the standard compression and rebound pistons in the can (they are way too restrictive and impossible to get right no matter how much reshimming you do).
Have a go, you will be very pleased with the results.

 

Myself in 1980

 

Great photo, thanks for sharing. Was your CX an 80 model? A new bike? My CX is an 80 model.
I'm amazed at how many comments on the street I get when I park it. The most common comments go something like, those CX last forever, they just keep on going or they're the smart man's moto guzzi. LOL.

 

Great CX photo, sorry that i have none to share.

Above is a photo of a couple of valve bodies, these live in the damper cartridge in the fork. The right side one is the OEM "HMAS" part, the one on the left is a more conventional Showa 3-port body, probably from a GSXR. The central hole is occupied by the bolt, and the ports around the outside are where oil flows during suspension movement. Installed, these would have a spring loaded check valve on one side that opens to allow free oil flow in one direction, but closes in the other direction, forcing all the oil to flow through the other set of ports which are capped by the shim stack. The stiffness of the shim stack will determine how much damping resistance is generated. In each cartridge there are two such valves, one (fixed into the bottom of the fork leg) controls the compression damping, the other (connected to the damper rod/fork cap) controls rebound damping.



The picture above shows the disassembled stock rebound valve for my 5G, with parts laid out in order.

In addition to the flow through the shim stack, there are also small fixed bypass ports that allow free flow at lower damper velocity. These can be through a hollow mounting bolt, recesses cut into the shim sealing face (as seen in the left body above, about 7 o'clock), or in the case of the 5G the use of a small diameter shim (12mm OD x 0.1mm thick) which spaces the main shims clear of the valve sealing face.

The thing to notice is the relative area of the ports, the HMAS valve uses very small ports, whereas the other valve has much bigger ports, so the flow restriction is very different between them. In my experience the small ports in the HMAS valve are one reason for the harsh feel in the stock fork, as they cannot flow oil fast enough to allow the fork to compress or extend quickly enough on sharp hits.

If you go down the path of replacing valves or shims, it is these parts that you will be swapping. For seemingly trivial parts, they make a huge difference to the feel and confidence of the bike on rough roads.

 

I have to replace fork seals (one slightly leaking) so I might as well upgrade the forks while I'm at it. Thanks Terry.