I recommend getting it professionally set up at a local suspension shop. Check local track groups to see which ones are good to go.

They will be able to give you a good baseline setup for your weight and make any spring/valving changes they deem necessary. Depending on how long it has been since the suspension was serviced (if ever), it might be a good idea to get that done too.

A lot of my local track events have a local shop there to do track-side setup/changes at a slight discount, and you can go back after a few sessions and talk to them and re-adjust as necessary. They know what they're doing and can really help find the root of any issues and explain the how/why of it all.

I'd wait to drop larger $$ on suspension upgrades until you confirm can't solve your problems on the current setup, especially since you're at a novice pace.

 

I have the same exact bike and year as you. The oem suspension is more than adequate for track days. You can also use the settings in the manual. Comfort-Standard or Race. It's very easy to adjust. All I did was put heavier fork oil in the front

That Ohlins R shock might be a direct fit to your bike also.

 

Agree with above. That bike is plenty fast in its current form. Harshness might be due to servicing as mentioned above. Do yourself a favor and email Dave Moss. He will likely give you better info than a local shop with suspension setup. There is also an excellent thread from about a year ago about suspension setup on this forum.

For reference with bike setup, a friend started in novice with a cbr f4i, and with no mods at all, not even rearsets, he rode that bike all the way to the A group. He rides a fully cmra race prepped 675r now and is just a few seconds faster on his 675r when going back to back with the two bikes.

 

Great advice- thank you. I think one of my track clubs has a “suspension” track night. I need to attend that one and in general start asking questions at these track days. I’m also a guy who likes to do his own work but my knowledge may not be robust enough.

Lastly I did get to checking my sag tonight. To my surprise both front and rear seem to have too much? That seems to contradict my harshness complaint?

Rear 41mm
Front 39mm

I’ll try to contact Dave Moss as well.

 

A good starting point for sag is based on a rule of thumb. It is not gospel. As you get faster your sag likely will not look anything like it does now. Racers do not go by sag numbers or every bike would have a book that has numbers for every rider weight. Actually, I bet most racers have no idea what their sag is.

Since you're riding a 675 we can rule out bad suspension (unless it's faulty). Harshness could be old oil, bad setup of rebound and compression and/or sag, bad tires, messed up geometry, etc. Also, remember sag sets a preload on the spring and in turn changes ride height, which is why when you get sag you need to be sure the front and rear of the bike still is within heights that keep the proper geometry. Sometimes you will need to set the fork in the triple to another position to have the correct suspension travel and still have good geometry. Sag(set using spring preload) does not change the spring rate. 0.9 is a 0.9 no matter what the sag is set to.

Sag is set primarily to give you maximum suspension travel. The rule of thumb is usually about 2/3 left of suspension travel when you are sitting on the bike with full gear. Since most sport bikes have about the same length fork travel, the sag number is born.

I suggest you put a ziptie around one of the forks, and if you can, on the shaft of the rear spring. You generally want the fork/spring to compress as much as possible on your hardest braking without bottoming, but getting close. Not panic braking but controlled braking.

Most people setup their bikes way too stiff because that's what most people think high performance means. Hence why so many modified cars have such bad suspension setups, but that's another story for another day.

Also check the rebound and compression of your forks and rear shock. Keep a notebook and write down all settings. Also note how the bike feels and how the tires look. Make one change at a time and note the difference. You will learn pretty quickly how to adjust the suspension based on feel and tire wear.

 

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A good starting point for sag is based on a rule of thumb. It is not gospel. As you get faster your sag likely will not look anything like it does now. Racers do not go by sag numbers or every bike would have a book that has numbers for every rider weight. Actually, I bet most racers have no idea what their sag is.

Since you're riding a 675 we can rule out bad suspension (unless it's faulty). Harshness could be old oil, bad setup of rebound and compression and/or sag, bad tires, messed up geometry, etc. Also, remember sag sets a preload on the spring and in turn changes ride height, which is why when you get sag you need to be sure the front and rear of the bike still is within heights that keep the proper geometry. Sometimes you will need to set the fork in the triple to another position to have the correct suspension travel and still have good geometry. Sag(set using spring preload) does not change the spring rate. 0.9 is a 0.9 no matter what the sag is set to.

Sag is set primarily to give you maximum suspension travel. The rule of thumb is usually about 2/3 left of suspension travel when you are sitting on the bike with full gear. Since most sport bikes have about the same length fork travel, the sag number is born.

I suggest you put a ziptie around one of the forks, and if you can, on the shaft of the rear spring. You generally want the fork/spring to compress as much as possible on your hardest braking without bottoming, but getting close. Not panic braking but controlled braking.

Most people setup their bikes way too stiff because that's what most people think high performance means. Hence why so many modified cars have such bad suspension setups, but that's another story for another day.

Also check the rebound and compression of your forks and rear shock. Keep a notebook and write down all settings. Also note how the bike feels and how the tires look. Make one change at a time and note the difference. You will learn pretty quickly how to adjust the suspension based on feel and tire wear.

So on my last couple of track days of the season I've done a couple things you suggested. Zip tied a fork and the shock. Ive also started a chart of suspension adjustments so to keep track of what I'm doing and making notes of how I think it handles. I also got to ride on a different track that is much smoother and probably more realistic of what a standard track is like. The one spot on the old track that generated me to start this thread is really my only complaint and it was only when running in that clubs direction. (We have 2 clubs that each run the same track in a different direction than the other). Either way I though I'd post a pic of the fork zip tie and see what is thought about it. It seems a little low to me but I'm definitely not bottoming and this represents my fastest time of the day.

Despite that one spot on the one track, this bike seems to handle excellently and gives me the most confidence of any bike I've ridden. HOWEVER, I did spend some time on the track this past summer with a cheap 2003 ZX6R track bike
thinking this may be the way to go. It is a full non-street legal track bike with Ohlins shock, Ohlins steering dampener, Race Tech forks, slicks etc. The springs were a little soft for me but I wasn't bottoming. In hindsight I think the geometry on this bike is way off. The Ohlins certainly didn't belong on this bike but I think it was just jammed in there. Anyway, I crashed the bike at 40 MPH, low sided on a long sweeper corner and when the bike hit the dirt it high sided- due to the front tire not sticking. Scared the crap out of me and now I feel like I'm back at infant stage regarding the track. The spot I crashed on had a slight pavement change (a patch), I was at lean, on a cold day, early in the session with presumably cold tires that were slicks. My instructors said those slicks were about the worst think someone at my entry level could have on a bike especially on a cold day due to how slicks are meant to dissipate heat (for a much faster rider) and DOT tires are meant to retain heat ( for someone like me). This whole event has me nervous to even push the Daytona again, subconsciously wondering if the Daytona's front tire will stick. But I need to get past it. Hopefully little by little I can eek my speed back to where I was. The Daytona inspired so much confidence in me on the smooth track, I want to get back to that feeling again.

Anyway, the shocks zip tie looks similar to this, but maybe not down quite as much.

 

Alright, thanks for the post. It generates a couple questions. For starters the zip tie idea is good and I will try that. Tonight I backed the clickers out to both ends too see where they are at. Generally they are all a little on the stiffer side. Not meaning they are too hard (but yet maybe) but all were like 8 clicks off full hard of say 20 for example. (Not actual numbers).

Geometry. How does one know if that is right? I’ve never heard of “numbers” regarding this. How would you know if it’s off?

I’d like to know about how the suspension settings affects tire wear?

 

Geometry is based on numbers but every bike is different. For example changing the tire brand changes tire diameter and that change will likely change how the bike feels and responds to inputs. Dave is very good with this type of information and can tell you where to start with fork height and all suspension settings to give you a good baseline. The other way is to find a totally stock unmolested bike and measure the front and rear height from the ground, etc., or find a fast racer (there are some on this forum) who has your model bike and ask questions about his/her setup, tire selection, etc.

Tire wear is very dependent on suspension settings and you can see if say you have too much or too little damping, wrong air pressure, etc., by looking at the tire. This is quite obvious when running on the track and if you have a good tire guy he can tell you what's what. If not then send Dave some pics and he will give you recommendations. Also, do your own research online. Life at lean has a pretty good starter page on tire wear.

 

Thanks again for your reply. I contacted Dave a couple days ago but haven’t heard back. Funny you mentioned life at lean. I just recently discovered their site and have started to study up. Dave’s site as well seem to have some good vids and info. Just have to take some time to watch them and take notes.

 

I copied this from an online magazine, forget which one. 2013 Daytona (std), average weight rider. I'm assuming it's for street riding, but I don't know for sure.

F
Preload 4 lines showing
Rebound 8 clicks out
HS comp 3 turns out
LS comp 10 clicks out

R
Preload 8mm thread showing
Rebound 9 clicks out
HS comp 3 turns out
LS 15 clicks out

 

You likely got it from here:

https://www.cycleworld.com/sport-rider/suggested-sport-bike-motorcycle-suspension-settings

They also have a suspension tutorial. Pretty good info to start with.

 

Be advised - tolerances in manufacturing parts on stock items range a BIG lot. I've ridden at least 4 different shocks - 2 ST-R and 2 Daytona - 3 of those on my bike (I changed them one after the other in order to find something decent) and another on a friend's bike. No shock was the same as another. Every one of them had different range of damping characteristics, obviously due to different manufacturing tolerances. Especially the ST-R shocks, are both exact same model and year so there's absolutely no excuse for the huge difference in their performance.



My take is that the adjuster assembly is a very intricate and particularly small assembly and variation in tolerances brings about a significant amount of behavior change.


So, be advised - there are lots of true shock absorber lemons out there and if your bike has one on it don't just rely on typical adjustments. If it's still breaking your back after dialing-in a "mid-grade" type of adjustment, don't hesitate to back off on that pesky compression damping adjuster, even if t needs to go all the way out.

 

If the zip tie is higher than that you're still off on your suspension settings; you don't want it to bottom out but you want to use the suspension travel.




Also, how fast are you riding? Slicks are not for begginers, many people go with slicks and race DOT tires thinking they will give them more grip. However those things are designed to be raced hard, they lose heat very quickly to avoid overheating... IOW, for most people those tires will offer less traction as they can't keep the temperature high enough. Last and not least, shape of the carcass on slick tires is very different, that might have something to do with the different handling characteristics you've noticed.

 

Thanks for the reply. I agree and you have basically quoted exactly what more than one track official has said about the slicks. The slicks are not on my Daytona and I really like the super corsa sp’s I have on that right now.

I guess I’m not following your 1st sentence. What are you suggesting about the zip tie location? I am not bottoming but maybe close it seems. This was at my fastest time of the day and on the roughest track I will ever ride.

 

I think what Arawn is saying is that you still have travel available in the fork.

I am not familiar w/ the non-r fork, but to give you an idea of how much travel is used when dialed-in: the top of the fork casting to the top of the o-ring (zip tie, whatever) on my track D675R is 12mm. The bottom-out is 10mm as set/measured by a suspension shop...so just 2mm away from using the full stroke.

IMO - its well worth it to get the bike sprung for your weight. This will help establish the right resting starting point (sag). I realize someone else said sag isn't important but I partially disagree. The static rider sag is a way to make sure the suspension is at a certain starting point when you're sitting on the bike. For street riding this is usually at a level where there is roughly 2/3rds from the bottom of the travel. I do think this still generally applies to track setups as a starting point. Good suspension shops will already know the right spring range for a bike given your weight, the bike, the track/s, etc... They often bypass measuring sag completely and get you into the right spring rate. I'm of the opinion that the sag is important and is ultimately factored into their expertise in selecting the right spring. My 2 cents.

 

Thanks for the reply. I haven’t been able to do any track days this weird year but I hope to pick back up on this possibly later this year or early the next. :smile2:

 

Ok, so time to pick back up on this. (I have been riding the track their year).

I’ve made a log of suspension changes that I’ve been making and dialing in some adjustments. The suspension is feeling pretty good.

Just for fun, I put my data into RaceTech’s site and they suggest the fork springs are a little to soft for my weight and the shock spring is a little too stiff for my weight. That is somewhat how I feel on the track too. How much do we trust their site’s suggestions? Would it pay to get the springs they suggest? If so that would be a pretty cheap n easy change.