Öhlins F/R shocks questions...

[MBrockman5]

(I apologize ahead of time if this sounds dumb)

 

Are the original "Rider Specs" crucially important for Öhlins shocks to function properly, or is there some leeway fore or aft?

 

The original owner of my  07 RT had the front and rear factory shocks replaced with Öhlins (I think "stx46"). Since these shocks were not built to my Specs (5' 10" / 190 lbs), I'm trying to figure out how to adjust them properly (if needed) without having them rebuilt. As far as I can tell, they ride well. I'm just wondering if they can be even better once they're dialed in properly to me.

 

Based on some of the riding gear & whatnot (jacket/pants/helmet sizes, the really high Russell Day Long seat, and lowered foot pegs), it seems that the original owner seems to be a pretty tall guy. The guy (also very tall) I bought it from is a Harley guy and didn't know anything about the bike, nor the stuff on/with it and only put less than 400 miles on it and included every single thing (a trunk and entire back seat load) that he got with the bike, which he passed onto me when I bought it.

 

I apologize for the length of this post. My wife is gone for 2 weeks, so my free time is being spent learning more about my "other lady" in the garage. 😎

[Bernie]

The first thing you should do is have a few friends help you measure the sag measurements for the front and rear of the bike. If they are within the recommended range, you should be fine. Then all you have to possible do is fine tune the damping or rebound settings.

Suspension101eBook.pdf

suspension.doc

BM504.pdf

SUSPENSION TECH: OPTIMIZING YOUR SET-UP.pdf

[Sonor]

Kind of a long series of articles about adjusting shocks, but try this on for size.

Shock Tuning

[MBrockman5]

Sweet guys. Thank you for the info. I'll do some measurements & experimenting...