PDS Shock Valving for New England?

[Throttlemonk]

I posted this under the WP shim shuffle thread so this is a repeat for those of you who have already read it.

I am looking for a starting point for revalving my PDS for rock New England trails. Any of you have any setups you wish to share? I realize it's not as easy as the fork but I have access to N2 and my shop is going to give me a rebuild 'lesson' this week. I regularly do my snowmobile shocks so hopefully this won't be a long stretch.

I have a PDS1, PDS6 and a 7.6 straight to play with, I think the PDS6 would be the best choice.

BTW, I'm 180# and run the A-Vet class on an '01 200 MXC in New England enduro's (nothing but rocks)

Any help appreciated.

Throttlemonkey

 

[marcusgunby]

I dont think you will find anyone willing to give you actual shim stacks but if you describe the problems you are having members will point you in the right direction.

 

[Throttlemonk]

Okay, so nobody is going to voluntarily cough up their secrect stack config for a PDS so I'll try another tact.

First, here is what's currently installed in my shock:
Main Comp:
44,8
44,8
42,8
32,6
42,6
38,10
36,8
28,4
34,10
32,8
30,8
28,8
21,8
21,6
Second Comp
44,10
42,10
38,12
34,12
32,12
24,10
Main Reb
36,8
36,8
32,8
36,10
36,10
34,8
32,8
21,12
Second Reb
36,8
34,8
32,8
30,8
21,12

When I installed the 'Chuck Waggoner' kit in my front fork it was a HUGE improvement over what was previously installed,
the only downfall is that it highlights how poorly the shock is working.

The above setup was designed for a straight rate spring but actually worked better when I installed a PDS 6.
The problems I am experiencing are not enough LSC and too much HSC. In a G-Out or hard turn the rear compresses much more than the fork but kicks over rocks/roots that the fork doesn't even notice.

Now the big question is what do I change? Based on what I learned with the fork changes I think that the 'crossover shim' needs to be smaller and thicker(24,10 ?) as well as adding another 44,8 to the low speed stack.
The High speed stack needs to be reduced, I would probably take out the 28,4 and 34,10 and possibly a few more.

I'm not sure what if anything on the rebound would change since I went from a straight to PDS. Possibly more rebound on the second stack to balance the higher spring force?

OK guru's am I even headed in the right direction?

Throttlemonkey

 

[marcusgunby]

Throttle monkey the shims you list are confusing me-a 44 mm shim with a thickness of 0.2mm i list like this 44.2-could you list all the shims like this and round down if its 0.12mm to 0.1mm.

 

[Throttlemonk]

Sorry,those are the shims by part #. Anything with a ,4 is .1 thk anything with a ,8 is .2 thk etc

 

[marcusgunby]

Right if Jer?Bud Man or Shocknut are reading this they will have a big one of these :) its amusing me giving advice on pds set ups when i have for over a year tryed so hard not to get involved in them.Anyway your set up,it sounds to me like you have a good idea whats wrong at present and the way to fix it-an extra 44.2 shim on the LSC will give a usefull increase in LSC and i would also think if you removed the 28.1 shim you are removing a crossover shim from the hsc-maybe better to keep the stack shape the same and reduce thickess of the hsc shims-go from 0.25s to 0.2s etc .The KYBs i see often have a cross over shim set up something like
32.1
26.15
you could try to use that as well or maybe just try on set of changes at a time and tell us how it works.

On the rebound i often went from pds to stright rate springs without a great problems on rebound.On the pds run the rebound clicker as light as you can.