FS650 stock suspension setup

Hey Wal why don't you give Frank Pons a call he did my suspension when Steve had a day at his place, it is a joy to ride now. He does road bikes so i'm sure he would be able to help with super moto setup.Or talk to Steve he really knows his stuff with suspension.
Regards Pids

I could be wrong here with my experience with Husabergs being limited to the FS650E, but I was just wondering if you've ever had a FS model before? It's just I've heard the suspension is "harder" the SM's, and if you've come from FE, the difference could seem quite pronounced?

Just a thought

Crispin

I wasted a lot of time thinking my phorks would settle in wear in or just start bloody working at all

"its WP you have to break them in" everyone says

they didn't.

300ks should be enough to tell if there going to work how you want, I'd change the oil and play around with the oil level, check the preload on the springs clean the metal out of the bushes etc etc

be interesting to know what wrong with them in general shims wise and what needs doing to make them work too

regards
Bushie

fs brick

Wildman they are set up like brick so when you going fast the suspension starts to work .
with Motard s static sage means buger all . I am 88kg and i have made my sus a bit harder from the stock setting and it still bottoms out over the table top
also the triple clams are adjustable for of set the more of set the essayer it turns I think they are adjustable from 16mm to 18 mm .I have 20mm of triple clamps bolted to my FS
and it.turns awesome
another trick is to get 20mm bar raisers and then drop you forks through 20mm makes it turn even faster .
Cheers Matt

oil height changes the whole feel of the forks right down to the initial harshness lots of people lower the oil level (less oil) to get better compliance over sharp edges, nobody is ever going to add oil to increase initial harshness but it does do that uless the Mv is changed a bit as well so its written as "add oil to increase bottoming resistance and spring rate in the last part of the travel"

your "supposed" only to use oil height to tune the last bit of travel but then WP stuff is "supposed" to be great ..... lots of stuff thats supposed to happen never really turns out as its supposed to.

the oil height is very important I missed a great bandaid on my forks by not playing with the oil level and weights first, its easy to do and doesn't require that you remove the forks from the bike.

someone on here found their FS fork springs prelaoded by 30mm or so...

IMHO if you can make bar raisers you can change shims, do it more than once and what to do next isn't so daunting.

awesome,

there should be some spring spacers in there that you could pull out for even less prelaod, the factory external adjuster may not actually start anywhere near zero

yeah its a bit like the engine valves ..... but unlike the engine you can't really destroy anything by having the wrong shims as long as your careful testing it and its completely reversible so there is nothing to loose except some time. just watch less TV.

you probaly know this but its crucial that the axle be seated properly or the forks can feel harsh, the smallest tweak and it may need adjusting.

sounds like we should get together again wal.
from our last ride together a month or 2 back, i've had my forks apart a number of times making changes.i'm no expert myself in suspension set up but is quite easy to make changes once shown how.i have also been getting a few ideas off bushy as he probably knows more than most.
could be quite interesting having them pulled apart at the same time comparing the changes they've made between 2001 to 2008.
just better buy light beer this time so we don't get your internals scrambled up with mine & we don't kill ourselves when we go testing.
i'll have to buy you some butt pads for a Christmas present.ha ha
sorry mate ,at least it wasn't me this time.
..weed..

http://www.husaberg.org/index.php?name= ... highlight=

The above link is how I improved the handling of my 05 fs650e. Note I ride on the road ie no jumps. Am quite happy with it now, not to say it is perfect though, still a bit much feed back from the road but I can live with it now.

RE: stock shim stacks

Thanks for that Wal, I'll be interested to hear what you think after a ride or 2.

RE: stock shim stacks

this is good stuff Wal, kinda fun eh?

BV Stack; 24,16,24,24,24,24,24,22,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,18

Click to expand...

ahm not any kind of expert on an FS but the one 24 on the face doesn't work in my bike it wallows around to much and is harsher than a stiffer stack. 8O

5x24, 22, 20, 18, 16, 14,12,10, 16,18 or even no 18 under will likely be a lot smoother even initially but as always its your bike and you're the boss. I call the extra 22 a toyota shim .. if loosing the 16 makes things abit niggly and harsh I'd address the MV with a bleed stage or bleed hole or change the MV spring and float rather than put the 16 back in the BV.

the ring shim thingy you found in the rebound stack is to prelaod the rebound stack

i think that in general stock dirt rebound stacks need to be softer initially so it doesn't pack on little bumps but should ramp up very quickly to handle both long stroke LS movements and any HS movements so it doesn't wallow or launch. the prelaoding of the stack is doing that a little by prelaoding it but there is no x over and overall it looks very stiff .

reminds me of car shockabsorber rebound "stacks" where they have a prelaoded blowoff spring pushing on the "stack" perhaps in the FS where bumps are smaller they are looking to do most of the LS with the clicker bleed and the whole rebound stack is like a blowoff spring. id suggest though as an ejumicated guess that summink like

24d,24d,24d, 16x0.1 or 0.05, 24d,24d,16(20), 20,20,20,10,10,16

would be nicer on niggly little bumps but might wallow a little in turns... just a thought. whats there allready may actually be extreemely good for an FS.

if you look at pg 13 of the fork tuning for enduros thread smorgasbord has a different approach to his rebound stack a 0.2mm prelaod dish on the piston and a 1.3mm bleed hole in the MV with a soft LS stage. I think (?) that what results is a very quick acting but relatively soft initail rebound that ramps up quicker than normal because the 24ds are closer to the HS shims. sounds good ! Im using a similar approach but without a stack.

the real action is at the MV compression arrangement

what was the MV float ? and was the spring made from 0.87mm diameter wire or 0.6? any bleed holes in the piston webs?

its important with this stuff to do whatever you feel is right at the time not just what you read on a forum so please take the above however you like and do whatever you want. but please let us know how it goes

regards
Bushie

Re: RE: stock shim stacks

bushmechanic said:

if you look at pg 13 of the fork tuning for enduros thread smorgasbord has a different approach to his rebound stack a 0.2mm prelaod dish on the piston and a 1.3mm bleed hole in the MV with a soft LS stage. I think (?) that what results is a very quick acting but relatively soft initail rebound that ramps up quicker than normal because the 24ds are closer to the HS shims. sounds good ! Im using a similar approach but without a stack.

Click to expand...

Yes, the entire stack is actually preloaded by the dishing of the piston face and I think what is happening is the same as what bushy thinks about it. I wanted when the fork was fullyish compressed and in the air to quickly rebound, that's why i did not go for the "constant speed" rebound as bushy did.
But when you think of it, wouldn't such a hit send the front aloft?, yes it would, and there would be time enough for the constant speed rebound forks to rebound before the wheel hit the ground again. Unless it's a rock sticking up. The slower highest speed rebound would relieve the rider from much of the reaction forces of the spring and air gap so I don't really think that in that particular situation the dish is better than the Bushmechanics rebound valve, on the contrary I think the dish is less comfortable.
In general I think that the Bushmechanics valves are a couple of steps ahead, it will take WP 10 years to get there, maybe faster than that once bushy have published his designs.
Regards.

you did good not changing too much

say with the Bv you could try

16,24,24,24,24,24,24,22,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,18

not too much different to what youve got
then try
24,24,16,24,24,24,24,22,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,18
then
24,24,24,16,24,24,24,22,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,18

24,24,24,24,16,24,24,22,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,18

then move it 2 spots

24,24,24,24,24,24,16,22,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,18

then take it out, then pull one of the 22s and the bottom 18. put the 16 instead of the heavy 18 to protect the stem.

24,24,24,24,24,24,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,16

thats what I did. but I needed a stiffer long stroke HS so I put 24s under the 10 but thats probably not needed on an FS unless you charge gutters head on.

I'll try and explain a bit of what I found out about boingers in case its interesting

It looks like the heavy MV spring on your bike. its not all that bad really to have a heavy MV spring (mine is a monster) if you do something like this to soften the initial harshness say just with what you have

MV
24,18, 24,24,20,11, 24, 22

the 18 is like a bleed shim but you can't put it on the MV directly without screwing up the rebound consistency so one step away is next best. if it dives too much you can close up the float with more shims under the stack or use the 20 or 22 as the bleed instead of the 18. if its too harsh cut the 18 down to a 16 or a 14 or a 12.

ultimately it would probably be considered by most to be better to do something like lew but I do like the heavy spring with a bleed stage.

(lews stack)
Mid-valve
24x.15
20x.1
14x.1
(2)10x.20
16x.1
20x.1
light ck-spring (same as popups or a KYB)

there are a lot of ways to think about which shims do what and where and many tuners have different ideas and argue themselves silly about it all on furums, everyone can get good suspension from applying their own approach if they do it methodically and logically. the carb comparison is pretty good though I don't think that any fork valve knows which part of the stroke its in? only how far the rod has moved from rest and how fast the rod moves.

that is i think that you can have some stroke sensitivity (short or long stroke) from the shimstacks with stages particulary the BV but not really technically posititon sensitivity unless every hit is taken from full extension then its the same thing to a degree. just MHO

the strength and prelaoding of the MV spring control some very Low speeds and contribute to initial harshness.

the MV float influences how high in the stroke the forks will ride and how responsive they feel, but as the float reduces percieved stiffness increases so as you reduce the float you may want to reduce the number of shims in the MV stack, reducing the number of shims in the stack reduces their support and lifespan. I'd not go too much below 1.2 mm in those forks without building some kind of extra support for the shims.

which shims do which speed ... ah I think all the shims influence everything a bit.

in the BV stack the face 24s in particular (like the Mv spring) influence every speed because obviously they have to move first before any oil passes them though they are mostly thought of as LS and short stroke HS.

its more complicated than this but say

24,24,24,24,24,24,22,20,18,16,14,12,10,16

your supposed to pull out the 12 to make it softer for rocks if there is any on the road? say potholes . or pull the 12 and the 14 and replace them with a 13.

if you change the 10 to a 9 or an 8.5 you make the whole stack softer but you also alter the balance between HS and LS (stifness varies as the beam length cubed)

to have a stiffer LS/MS you add 24s (LS) but that also stiffens everything or a 19 or 17 or 15 (MS) but that also stiffens HS so then you have to comphenstae by changing the pivot or pulling the 12.

harder than which shim does what is deciding which speed needs to be stiffer or softer for a given application and ony trial and error can really help there.

lots of guys pull out too many 24s on the BV or have a piddly little first stage to try and reduce initial harshness which is better dealt with on the MV. what they often get is a wallowing bike with an odd harshness and a very lumpy progression through the stroke that blows through when pushed.

the challenge is to get a stiff enough LS and MS to stop wallowing and blowing through the stroke without any initial harshness or a too stiff HS.

its very possible and very rewarding though it does take some time to find stuff out. there are a few other little tricks to help like a very thin face bleed shim on the BV, Ill explain that if anyone is interested in using one.

FWIW i think about 20% of possible improvements lie in the rebound stack of most bikes.

sorry for the long post, got a torrets thing or summink .. once i start.... gotta finish

I hope its helpful somehow or at least a bit of a laugh

regards
Bushie