Those are all very good questions. I disagree a bit with the idea that compression damping is useless, although I think the least you can get away with the better. Kenny Roberts Sr. agreed with your BMW friend by the way, going so far as making his suspension tech remove the compression stack entirely during practice one time. But it seems to me that if you rely solely on spring tension to stop the upward movement of your suspension, it will likely travel further than it has to before spring tension stops it and reverses it. This will take up more travel plus it will take more time. The spring will then be more compressed than it would have been otherwise, which means the peak speed of the return to normal ride height will be higher, which puts more responsibility for control of that motion on the rebound circuit, which now has to be tuned to damp that type of motion vice a slower, shorter motion. I think.

I've been contemplating some experimentation along the lines of: reducing the high-speed compression to allow the suspension to move faster over small, sharp bumps while dialing in a bit more low speed compression to resist fork dive under braking, which I hate. I still think of "suspension compliance" in terms of compression damping while every magazine or other tech source seems to be referring primarily to rebound damping being of primary importance.

I'm a very long way from understanding any of this very well. Hope some other guys chime in with a bit more trial-and-error knowledge.

 

Great inputs, and yes, I hope others chime in as well. I'm beginning to think that the only way to really figure this out is to remove all the compression damping and then gradually put it back in, one piece at a time. It would be great to really characterize the real-world implications of low and high speed compression damping, both front an rear.

 

Interesting that you mention that. What you describe is exactly what Kevin Cameron recommends in his "Sportbike Performance Handbook" ( http://www.amazon.com/Sportbike-Performance-Handbook-Motorbooks-Workshop/dp/0760302294 ). Slack off all the damping adjusters. Ride the bike, noting the cushy soft pillow-like ride along with the teeter-totter motion and diving. Bring in about half the rebound damping between "none" and "standard"; note the increase in control etc.; keep going until you get to full rebound damping (still no compression damping) noting - actually writing it down in a detailed way in a notebook - how it feels and your impressions of what's happening. Get the rebound within a couple clicks of "right", then start in with compression in the same way.

I must admit, I did this technique with my old oil-boiler 750, but I haven't tried it yet with the K7 1000, and I haven't really considered how the high/low compression adjustability plays in this scenario.

 

Hey guys, I been researching the same things concerning my 08. The way I understand it is the low speed is used during the softer or less abrupt bumps and the fluid goes through the shim stack valving. The high speed blows the stack up and the fluid is allowed to go through a larger valve.

This may or may not be the case but I think no matter how it works the lows speed adjuster is for the eazy or soft bumps and the high speed adjuster is for harder bumps or heavy braking.

My big question is is what is the correlation between rebound and compression. Does a increase in compression (screwed in to be harder) affect the rebound setting.

Example

low speed front compression set from 14 stock to 12. What change is normally made to rebound?

low speed front comprssion set from 14 stock to 18. What change is normally mad to rebound?

My questions come as a result of softening the front compression.
I went to:
LS From stock 14 to 17
HS From stock 3 to 3-1/4
When I checked my rebound I had to screw it in from stock 6 to 3, so when the front end was pushed down it did not rise then settle back.

So my observation is that when compression is set softer, rebound is set harder.

If anyone really knows or can give a link to some good adjustment information it would be great. I have already done all the static sag stuff and have it set close but I am looking for fine tunning info.