I have a 05 Titanium RR with just over 500 miles. I have a question with the suspension and tuning it properly. Here's my situation:
when braking normally, Using the front and rear brakes, same pressure, the front of the bike really dives down. I have to use more rear to come to a level stop. I dont want to use more rear because most of the braking is off the front. Am I using too much front brake? OR is my suspension setup in the front too soft and the rear too firm. I am a bigger guy 6' and 270 lbs. Also when I sit on the bike it seems like my body wants to slide to the front of the seat. I cannot sit comfortably on the bike without being on the front part of the seat. This also leads me to the question is the front too soft and rear too stiff. I have not physically gone and used the supplied tools in the kit to see where the settings are. The front forks look like they are in the factory position for rebound and damping.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!!

 

it's very easy to adjust and you're a big guy why not just tighten up the front and see how she feels, if you're not familiar with how to do so just download the service manual here, it'll save you sixty bucks but you have to move your computer to the garage [c[IMG][/IMG] http://www.urg2.com/1krr.htm

 

Also might want to check this out. I went by this and it seemed to work pretty good


http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_susp_settings/

 

Some front-end dive is normal when coming to a stop, so I think you might want to use caution using so much rear brake as the rear tire is more likely to start skidding as the weight begins to transition forwards (particularly during a panic stop). I can't remember what the split is, but I know that you should be applying most of your braking force through the front. I only use my rear brake at lean when I want to avoid upsetting the chassis or to modulate power delivery.

I believe the bikes are set-up from the factory for much lighter riders, so at 270 lbs, you probably want to crank up your preload, front and back. This is actually part of setting your 'static sag' so it's easier to objectively determine what the setting is should to be. I would hold off an making any compression or rebound damping changes until you have the 'static sag' set and a better idea of the handling problems you are experiencing.

 

At 270 lbs, you're never going to get the suspension properly set up for you. The stock springs rates just won't allow that to happen. Also, the stock valving for both front and rear will be nowhere near sufficient to handle your weight, let alone when you start pushing the bike aggressively. In order for the bike to handle the way it should, you're going to need much suspension work. You'll need to change to stiffer spring rates and get some valving done. This won't be cheap but you'll be impressed with how much better the bike will respond to you in the twisties.

Now having said that, your front and rear have 3 adjustments, preload, compression and rebound. You must do preload first!!! None of the other settings will make sense if you don't have your sag set properly. Once that is dialed in, do the other two. If this is all foreign to you then read the Sport Rider link that was previously posted first.

 

Thanks for the info. After I posted the question I went outside and tightened up the preload for the front and rear only. I contacted the dealer who I bought the bike from and he told me they set the suspension to the factory default settings. That meant that the front preload was set to 7 and the rear was set to 4. I pretty much cranked up the front to the max and the rear is now on 7 of 10. It seems to have fixed the problem. I can now sit at the rear of the seat and brake without sliding and banging my ***** on the tank. The bike responds somewhat better now. I also try not to use the rear too much and am still learning the feel for it.

The front preload is suppossed to have 15 clicks of adjusment. The owners manual says to turn it counterclockwise until is stops or feels like it doesnt want to turn any more. I went back about 12 clicks on the left side and there was still more clicking going on. I then returned it back to the factory setting before turning it up. I moved the preload up 7 clicks on each side and it really stiffened up the front. I dont think it hurt it any if I went back more clicks than what was available will it?

Demat