I have a 2017 Fox 32 performance fork. Dialed in after Fox guidelines I felt it was to hard on small bumps. In my opinion it didn't have any compliance.
So I put in three blue tokens/spacers in the fork and lowered the pressure (from 85 psi to 60 psi).
Now I feel that the fork is much more supple on small stuff but it's not bottoming out after jumps.
So to my question; what I have done, Is it wrong in any way? I mean, the psi I'm using now is A LOT lower than Fow recommends.
/Chriss
You've done exactly what the spacers are designed for.
Lower volume chamber needs less pressure as there is less air to squash.
Makes the stroke supple but ramp up quicker. Less linear travel.
Prob better on small bumps but not mid sized hits.
I wouldn't expect to bottom out a fork on jumps unless getting things wrong and landing very nose heavy.
On a hardtail a big-ish huck to flat is a good way to check you're using full fork travel when you need it. On a full-sus it takes a huge huck to use all the fork travel in my experience - the last 10% seems to be there to save you when you screw up!
I'd take one or two of the tokens out and see how it behaves.
I like to be able to get maximum travel from my forks a few times on a ride and not just if I make a massive mistake . I would try lowering the pressure even more and see what happens . Taking a token or two out and keeping the same air pressure should also do the trick .
Sorry to hijack a bit, with regards to adding tokens etc. I was messing about with the air pressure on my shock by keeping lowering the pressure to see how low I could go, it did feel better on smaller bumps but it was then sat a long way into the sag, would adding a spacer/band or whatever make it feel the same but correct my sag?
Set the sag, bracket the compression and play until it feels ok. Then check how much travel you're getting
If you're not using 90% of it on your regular ride then maybe take a token out and repeat.
What does bracket the compression mean?
After I added spacers I could have lower pressure but still have a regular sag(20%) and the fork was more supple. Now in the beginning at least, it’s still all good.
I think Fox over estimate the recommended pressure for a given rider weight. For my bike the recommended pressure in the Float DPS shock is about 155 psi for my weight and I run it at 130 psi with the stock volume spacers.
For the Fox 34 fork it advises about 90psi and I run it at 70 psi but with 1 spacer instead of the 2 that came installed.
I'm sure there's been other threads where others said they needed lower pressures than recommended.
Bracketing the compression.
Run it fully open - then run it fully closed. Then set it somewhere between the two n decide how it feels - do you want it more like open or like closed. Set it between those two settings. Then repeat
Eventually you centre on what feels best. Run it a few times to check n maybe fettle the pressure slightly and then see how much travel you're actually using