Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Would be great to get some feedback on this subject from you guts/girls.I stumbled across some old settings I had found when I had my zrx11 before my 2008 1200 came along. I rember how well they performed on the earlier model and set about trying them again on the 1200. I personally feel the standard settings are a bit hard for the road, espeacilly the front end, knock the fillings out of your teeth type of hard. The following changes make the feel make the zrx alot better to ME By maxing out the rebound settings and using minimum compression damping. Preload settings will change individuals weight of course. Iam 90kgs so preload will be diffrent again to someone who is 70kgs, and so on. I personally like my settings on the softer side of thingsand don't mind the bike moving around alittle when pushed hard, but a comfortable overall ride is upmost. Here is mine, just for comparison with all the other zrx owners.
forks= compression almost minimum,fully counter clocwise then 2 clicks. rebound 2 clicks out from maxium, fully clockwise then 2 clicks out. preload 3 lines showing.
Shocks, compression 2, rebound 4, preload 3.

I'm in the experimental stage at the moment with the suspension on the 08 ZRX. I had it at standard but have found the rear a bit soft for me at this setting. I found some settings on the net and adjusted to these for last sundays ride and found the front was stiff and had no feel at all. I did some adjustments at the halfway mark and found it was ok for the ride back. I still don’t know exactly what If got it set at as I started at standard and adjusted preload, rebound etc till it felt good (might check it tomorrow). I think I will go new rear shocks and get the front redone one day

Wadda, Take it to Zeno or Terry Hay....they'll get the front sorted with a re-valve and springs im sure, shouldn't be too difficult..

A good way to suss your front rebound is to hold the bike upright and hold the front brake on and push the front down as far as you can and then let it rebound back up all the while holding the front brake so the bike stays stationary.

The forks should come back up and stay up..e.g, they shouldn't settle down after the upward stroke. If it settles down after finishing its upward stroke then stiffen the rebound till it stays up when it comes back up or at the least has very little settling downwards.

If that's confusing then they should go ..down then back up and stay there...not down up down.. after you've pushed them.

Not sure what kwaks use but the Suzukis have 4 or so turns of rebound but due to the needle setup they use it is only the last 1 1/4 turns that actually do any effect to rebound at all.

I cant really give you any feedback as my only stock shock (one was dmaged) is in a box in the shed. The Ohlins feel really good though, much better than the stockers - like in a different universe type of better. Also the front end I found folded in half when the brakes were applied with any venom, I'm certainly not the last of the late brakers either. Didnt seem to matter what I did to them.

A revalve and sorting of the shims in the forks did the trick but the 08 have a different for setup that makes what I had done almost impossible.

When I rode the Big Guys on the weekend it seemed to tip over a bit faster but lost all feel and I had no confidence in what the front was doing, whereas with mine there is ample feedback that allows you to underastand what the front tyre is saying to you.

Well, it was good enough to keep up with the 10's & 12's on the island trip anyway

Phil wrote:Well, it was good enough to keep up with the 10's & 12's on the island trip anyway

Master of the understatement

Hi wadda, phil,ect
Thanks for all your input so far. Hay wadda, I have seen those piggyback wilbers, are they called?think from memory they are made in the states and are very expensive..look trick though Very difficult to better ohlins, even my basic preload Ohlins shocks for my old eddie performed without fault for atleast 15years , and still continue on today,incredible craftmanship and well worth the initial pain in the hip pocket. Yep the standard suspension really does show it self on the zrx12 to be abit budget..but hey at $12999.00 plus onroads it's still the best bang for your buck out there. Maybe Iam just not tweeking it in the right places, only time and money will tell I guess...but it's a keeper and there's plenty of time to sort things out...touch wood. I think once I can get a second hand seat out there to redo, cut down style of my old eddie, things will improve, take away that sitting on top and not into the bike. This proved to be the best mods on my zrx11 by far (apart from the akra) and seemed to shift weight where it should be. But it's proving to be very diffict to find one,as my wanted add has shown

yep they are Wilbers. I was thinking of getting Ohlins but im trying not to get all the same mods as Phil. I dont wont to get the same pipe but at this stage I cant go past the Kerker.

Nice looking bike the Z1000