u/FountainDrnxII

It’s honestly sad how many of you are completely overlooking your suspension, right now. And I know it to be complete ignorance, based on the way many people in the community talk about suspension. Completely clueless. And before you get mad at me, ask yourself when the last time you replaced your fork oil was. Ask yourself about that one time you crashed the bike, and if suspension could have helped prevent it. Ask yourself if you don’t ever feel confident with the tires.

As an example, I crashed my Z125 in a parking lot months ago doing a U-Turn because I forgot to stiffen the dampening back up to street settings. My front tire caught in a crack in the road and rebounded my handlebars to the other direction, flipping the bike and me to the other side. With higher compression, this rebounding effect would have been much kore subdued and controllable. I’m sharing this as an example of why it matters, and what can be done to diagnose & fix.

If you know this isn’t you, good job I’m proud of you for taking care of your motorcycle, and being a good rider.

Your suspension keeps your tire consistently on the ground. It’s as important to your safety as your helmet is. It’s almost as important as your choice in tire & tire pressure to how much grip is available to you.

So I hope this is a wake up call to someone. Not everyone has adjustable suspension, so I understand if this isn’t you. But if you spend $500 on your brand new Pirelli Rosso 4 Corsa’s or comparable tire to go fast, buy a $10 wrench to adjust your suspension’s preload with. Spend $100 on a set of preload springs that actually fit your weight. Suspension components get HOT AF and you don’t even realize, go get the oil in the suspension replaced after 10-20k miles. It’ll feel like a brake bleed after a long time, suddenly you’ll have a lot more feeling from the suspension because the oil isn’t completely oxidized anymore. If you’re out-riding the compression, go look at getting the shim stack/valves rebuilt.

My main point remains: go learn how to adjust your suspension. Go maintenance your old suspension. It may save your life.

If anyone has questions about HOW to adjust suspension, or even going deeper down the rabbit hole like better spring rates for your weight, different oil weights, rebuilding shims to vary the compression/rebound characteristics, etc feel free to ask. Here to teach and hopefully also learn.

Edit 1: It's called damping, not dampening as I made the mistake of saying.

Sorry for the stupid question. Genuinely wasted 5 minutes of my time looking/ looking up how to get rid of the track rider badge. Thanks!

https://preview.redd.it/rt2idsj7jvxg1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0310ea0affca99093b751cfdf5c13158aac9d0c

Pic for attention. So I got my 2018 DCSB 3.5L tuned by Q with TK 421 tuning. Overall, good experience and knowledgeable individual. The tune took a total of 15 minutes inbetween a software update and questions regarding the tune.

I initially had lot of vibrating coming from the gas pedal from 25-35mph, and that turned out in the end to by transmission being low on fluid, so the torque converter was slipping. During the time I experienced this, using the "manual" selection vastly reduced the vibrations felt, and helped torque converter engagement and shift smoothness.

After the transmission fluid change and fill, I was still experiencing lurch from a dead stop, as the transmission would shift 1-2 immediately off of a roll.

Since tuning the truck, all of these problems have mostly disappeared. No more truck lurch from a dead stop, no more gear hunting on the highway up an incline, no more lurch when hitting the gas pedal to pass someone on the highway. The shift points feel about 80% smoother, with the shifts no longer feeling like they aren't engaging well.

It also has completely re-mapped the throttle response, which was completely dead stock, and I felt like I was constantly having to press the throttle further and further to maintain speed sometimes. I was willing to live with it, but much happier now that this is no longer the case.

I went with the Medium/Spicy tune. Medium feels really good responsively without any weight in the truck, and the ECT defineatly feels like something I only need when towing now, as the throttle is a little twitchy unweighted. With 500lbs in the truck, it once again felt really good. Previously, I would literally turn on the truck, then turn on the ECT, because I couldn't stand the standard throttle map. No 2 second delay in the first 20% of the throttle anymore. I'm used to a responsive throttle, so I really love this change.

Overall, I'm really happy with the changes. I plan on doing a couple trips soon, so if I ever run into problems in harsher terrain using the Medium/Spicy I'll update!