I had a base model 1199 which I struggled to get the standard suspension, especially the forks, to my liking. I too thought I was not getting full travel and I was concerned when the front tyre wore out well before the rear. On checking the function of my forks I realised the rebound adjuster made no difference at both extremes of adjustment. Took the bike back to Moto Rapido who found a small issue with the bladders which they bled(?) but importantly with the caps off they pointed out that the forks are bottoming out with from memory 38mm of slider showing. So you may be bottoming your forks looking at your picture. I ended up buying ohlins road and track forks and shock with 9.5nm springs which made a big improvement but was expensive (imported from states). Good luck.
(in response to Mr. R...) Hmm... The 1098s came with arguably a rear spring that was way too soft, and lots of pre-load to compensate. Many riders complained of harshness at the back (me included) and the solution was to fit a stiffer spring and wind back the pre-load. I am a lightweight at just over ten stones and JHP fitted a stiffer spring for me. The bike was much improved following this work.
So just to update this thread, I will be booking the bike in with JHS for some Ohlins front springs, matched to my weight. I will get the forks serviced at the same time so the total bill will be around £300 all in. I also measured the amount of fork leg underneath my 'travel indicator'/zip tie and it's about 35mm so I am using full travel. For now I've added a little more compression damping but left preload fully wound out. I basically just want to get the Ohlins springs fitted and see how the bike feels then. Apparently I can get full travel out of the forks with an Ohlins 30mm cartridge kit though, which are £940 plus fitting. That'd be nice/grounds for divorce...
Can you stick up your weight and the new spring rates when you get it Matt, I'd be interested in seeing the figures.
Sure. Well I'm 12.5 stone and as soon as I find out which springs they decide to put in I'll let you know
Why is your pre-load wound all the way out? Is it purely to get more travel in the fork? If you have done that then yeah, definitely don't run too little compression else the fork speed will be really quick!
I'm aiming for a sag measurement of around 30mm, whereas even with the preload wound fully out, I'm only getting 15mm-ish. If I add any preload the sag figure is only going to get smaller, which is why I'm going down the avenue of new springs.
Yeah that makes sense! I remember reading it should be around 30mm for the road and less for track, I might have a look at mine on the 899 as the forks feel perfect but would be interested in where they are
I contacted Maxton today to ask what they would recommend and, unsurprisingly, they've recommended their cartridge kits. No mention of the springs being too hard for most but that's probably because the springs aren't actually the issue, according to them. They're scathing in regards to the internals none the less and an this makes for an interesting read... FRONT The forks on the 1199 Panigale are Marzocchi forks. The forks feel very hard and harsh, this is because they have too much compression damping, so over small movements the oil can not circulate around the damping system quickly enough and you get a hydraulic lock. At the same time the forks do not have enough rebound damping, so when you let go of the brake the forks return very quickly. This casues the bike to run wide a lot off the brakes. The external quality of the sliders is very good but the fork internals themselves are very poor quality. The rebound and compression damping adjusters have little or no effect on the damping and the original fork cartridges can not be revalved as they are pressed/peaned together, basically the forks are tamper proof. To improve the Marzocchi forks on the 1199 Panigale we have two options... They then went through their options which are the full 30mm cartridge or half 30mmcartridge kit. Going by what has been said above I'm really quite tempted by their half cartridge kit which costs £475+ VAT (plus another £140+VAT for fitting/new seals etc). This is what they recommend for road use. The full cartridge kit costs around £1200 fitted to loose forks and is perhaps a little unnecessary for my type of riding.
I changed to a heavier k tech , but on the early models forks kept breaking so I switched to maxton interals
I'd need to get the 2015+ Panigale R forks so that they weren't the electronically controlled versions. I'm guessing there aren't many of those about, especially not around the £1200 mark! I'm not going to go for their full cartridge kit, I'm looking at their half kit which would be around £700 fully fitted including fully servicing the forks.
That's a fair shout, only trouble is that you would probably need £300-400 for a decent set, so maybe just best to rebuild the marzochi's My rear 899 shock is off to MCT this week, apparently suffers from similar 'lock out' scenario, funny how manufacturers build such beautiful bikes and then don't release them with the correct set up
That's a fair shout, only trouble is that you would probably need £300-400 for a decent set, so maybe just best to rebuild the marzochi's My rear 899 shock is off to MCT this week, apparently suffers from similar 'lock out' scenario, funny how manufacturers build such beautiful bikes and then don't release them with the correct set up
Only cause i have a set up for sale :Angelic: ,only joking keeping them,if you can sell the Maz forks it may only be a £100 upgrade,thinking about it you would also need a 899/1199s top yoke and clip on's,so maybe not so cost effective.Be interested to know how your shock goes as i have 2 brand new rear shocks that aint worth a penny,might get them revalved and move them on as it seems a waste to scrap them.
You would only need the yokes/clip ons etc if the 899 fork diameter was different to the 1199, otherwise they'd slot right in. Not sure about front axel, guessing they're the same. Anyway, I don't think swapping to 899 forks is really an option, I'd much rather spend the cash and get my forks setup properly for my weight. Not that it really matters, but I also much prefer the gold/black of the Marzocchi's. Shame they look better than they actually work [emoji23] I'm also interested in how you get on with your shock Phill. Maxton were equally as critical of the Panigale rear shock as they were the fronts. They also state that the shock cannot be re-built so the only option is a new spring. MCT must obviously have a way of doing it! Doesn't the 899 share the same Sachs rear shock, but with a different spring? I'm not messing around with the rear, I have a nice new Nitron shock on order [emoji106]
This is what Maxton have to say about the rear (1199)... The Paingale has two linkage posistions – FLAT/linear or PROGRESSIVE. As standard the rear linkage is in the Flat position, for road use this works best as the shock is controlling the rear wheel all the way through its full movement. It is important to set up the shock to suit the Flat position to get the best from the linkage. In simple terms the Progressive position means that as the shock compresses the shock feels stiffer. The starting point for the Progressive position makes the shock initially feel softer but as the wheel starts moving up the shock (progressively) gets stiffer, this can make the ride more compliant at first but over bigger bumps makes the ride feel very hard.The rear shock on the 1199 Panigale is a Sachs rear shock, the shock is quite a cheap unit in terms of its deisgn and quality, but the set up of the shock is not too bad. The Sachs shock is not rebuildable as you can not get any parts (seals guide bushes etc) to rebuild the shock with. The spring on the shock is on the hard side for the average rider weight but the rebound and compression damping is not too bad. The biggest problem with the damping is if you change the rebound damping adjuster it dramtically affects the compression damping at the same time, this makes it very difficult to setup the damping to suit the spring. We can respring the unit to suit your rider weight and then run the shock on our shock dyno to try and find the best damping settings, the cost for this is £95.00 + V.A.T. Because of the problems with the damping adjusters the best solution is to replace the unit.
The maz forks are bigger at the top than the 899 and the 1199s/r so would require top yoke and clips, bottoms yokes are all the same, all other bits are the same, don't ask how I know.
