I’ve been riding with some similar setting on my FullSus for about 12 months now. However I noticed that when rolling through a section following friends I would lose speed compared to them.

It was suggested I needed to make some changes, so more (air)spring was added and compression taken off to compensate for the increased spring rate.

However, while this feels faster in various sections, I’m finding the bike now is understeering – i.e. on tracks I know really well the bike isn’t as responsive in tight corners and feels a lot slower. Also, I’ve noticed the bike through rock gardens is “pinging” off stuff more, leading to a few brown trouser/near miss moments.

I think this is due to the bike staying higher in the travel but wanted to see if any suspension guru’s out there might have thoughts on this.

I’m not sure whether to drop the spring rate slightly, add/remove compression damping or add/remove some rebound.

Tyres, tyre pressures?

I’d see if you can borrow a shokwiz.

By understeer I assume you mean the tyre loses traction and slides wide?

Tyres, tyre pressures?

Front Shorty 21PSI
Rear Minion DHR2 25PSI

We did use a shockwiz previously which is where the previous settings came from.

Tyres aren’t losing traction more the bike is just handling different and is less responsive suddenly.

You don;t say you were unhappy with the way the bike handled before and you are now so I’d revert to the shockwiz settings and look at your technique.

I’ve found there’s some trails where I ‘catch up’ riders just by taking a slightly different line or lifting the bike off roots rather than crashign through them. Equally, on others they pull away by riding differently.

I’m no expert, but I’ve found that rebound can get slowed down to much, slow rebound doesn’t let the fork get back in contact with the ground and so you lose traction. Try dropping your air pressure back to the right sag rate and adding a few more clicks of rebound.

When was the last time the forks and shock were serviced? Ditto with frame bearings and shock bushings.

Sounds like you need more (slower) rebound on the fork and possibly less air. What sag are you running front and rear (when measured standing, heavy feet weightless hands)?

Just because other people are faster than you on a roll through section it doesn’t mean you need to fiddle with suspension settings, especially if you were otherwise happy. Your position, tyre choice, weight, tyre pressure, and a million other things have an effect as well.
If you were otherwise happy, I’d revert to your previous settings and look elsewhere.
These Shockwiz things are great as a guide, but can leave riders chasing ghosts.

Fork (Fox 36 RC2) and Shock (Float X) are due a service -has been about 14 months since new and have been ridden in all sorts of conditions including a couple of weeks in the fine dust of Finale.

I’m thinking a mid point between current air pressure and old air pressure as the increased speed through rough sections is awesome but feels far too firm.

It has been mentioned adding compression will make it less firm but this doesn’t make sense, although I appreciate the interplay between compression and rebound needs to be taken into consideration.

Don’t make more than one change at a time it, could be many things.
not in any order but try:

Make sure rebound speed suits new air pressure, more spring force needs more damping.

Do some bracket testing, set it a fair bit slower than you think then try the other extreme, eliminate the setting that felt worse. Don’t forget everything has an effect on everything else.

Riding more weight on the front, Lower your bars or roll them forward. Add hight to the rear, this could be static or dynamic depending on where you need it.

Try to think about what the change you make is doing to the bike, not just the fork or shock as it is a system.

Sorted – dropped 1.5psi down to 78.5psi and 1 click of LSC. Feels much better. Cheers for everyones input.