Mr.B

What are the factory preload, rebound & dampening settings for the 2004 model? Please help no owners manual yet.

smokinjoe73

Stock setting are not going help you much. You should mention your weight and riding style. Those are more important as the stock front end is undersprung and underdamped. How does the bike feel now? How long have you been riding?

Wolverine

This thread will help you get the bike where you want it to be. You can also search youtube for videos.

Mr.B

200lbs riding for 40 yrs, I ride moderate to spirited. Have a slight head shake at high speed and have discovered that both front and rear shock settings are out of wack severely. Have sorted the rear but need help taking the front to factory specs so appropriate adjustments can be input. Thnx
I bought my SuperHawk used and don't know history.

JamieDaugherty

This is exactly right - you have your choice of crappy, really crappy, or ultra crappy. Certainly there is nothing you can do by fiddling with the adjustments that will make it good - only less bad. This is true for most bikes, actually. Kind of sad when you think that some people charge money to "setup" your bike using the stock adjustments and nothing else.

In your case just crank the preload all of the way in. I'd set the rebound adjustments at 1/2 turn out. From there just make the best of what you have until you can/want to invest in upgrades.

Tweety

We might not all agree on the finer points around here, but the consensus is that if your above feather weight, the stock suspension is under-sprung and under-dampened by far... If you want better, you have to swap out the springs and stacks to suit your weight...

Oh... And for Mr.B who's new to the forums... Just FYI, Jamie is one of the guys that we trust for suspension setup advice... He has for instance rebuilt and re-manufactured Honda CBR rear shocks to suit the VTR for many of our members, me included, and knows a damned lot more about suspension than a fair few of us...

Mr.B

Ok, I'll start there; thanks for the assist. I do know of Mr. Daugherty as I have one of his reworked shocks on the back of my "84" 1000 Interceptor.

smokinjoe73

See how that feels but at your weight and riding style it will only be degrees of lousy.

When I was stuck with the stock stuff til and upgrade I added some thick fork oil (aninch per side) and added a spacer to add spring preload. (again about 1 inch)

Bike handles tons better since I think the stock setup is borderline dangerous. As for the wobble, this bike is extremely sensitive to worn or low pressure tires.

When I bought mine it had original rubber. It looked perfect and had tread but changing it out again was a revelation.

1971allchaos

Tweety, I like this "B" guy All of this READS like .....LAST ACTION HERO(movie) scary.........
I like the WACK term..........seems wacked...
Jamie would be my second suspension man....ONLY because I live .within 5 miles of OHLINS...