Adjusting the Intense M9

F1234K

F1234K

Likes Dirt
Based on a suggestion by VTSS350 I am starting this thread for people that own M9's and would like to hear what others thought of changing some of the settings on the bike or would like to add their own information and findings from their experiences changing some of the settings.

The basic idea is to have a collection of info about the effects of changing the bikes numerous settings. What worked for you, what didn't and please, please give reasons why. It's no good just saying "changing this setting sucks!" as that is not informative at all.

I've got nothing much to add myself at this point as I just built mine up and haven't given it a ride yet, but looking forward to hearing some experiences...
 
adman

adman

Likes Dirt
I started mine at Mt Buller with the following settings...

Shock progression : Progressive
Travel : 9.5 inches
G3 Dropouts : Long
Head angle : 1º slacker (63º)
Spring : 400 lb Ti
Rider weight : 75kg

Firstly, progressive sucked. The bike felt like it had half the travel it should and felt really unstable. I thought I was on the linear setting but I thought wrong. This setting would work well for a jump track but not a rocky one like Buller.

The travel was good, but it felt too sort of... wallowy... like it sat too far in the travel particularly through corners.

The combination of the G3 dropouts and the head angle made it very hard to corner. I was running up the back of all of them and didn't feel it was working well. It was very stable through rough stuff, but the tradeoff was too much and it wasn't worth it.

The spring was also quite hard for my weight. I was told the bikes were softly sprung but I found it otherwise. I think you need quite a soft spring to get it set up right.

The next day I changed the settings to...

Shock progression : Progressive
Travel : 9 inches
G3 Dropouts : Short
Head angle : 0º (64º)
Spring : 350 lb Ti
Rider weight : 75kg

Again, I wasn't aware I was running progressive, so forget that setting again.

9 inches was a lot better. It felt like it had plenty of available travel but not so much that it got bogged down.

The combination of the shorter chainstays and steeper head angle made things way quicker through corners. I could rail the corners faster and with more control. I didn't notice a heap of difference in stability. I haven't done it yet, but I wouldn't mind trying a slacker head angle but keeping the short chainstays.

The 350 Ti spring was a lot better, but still didn't use all of the travel.

New settings for the Sunday race...

Shock progression : Linear
Travel : 9 inches
G3 Dropouts : Short
Head angle : 0º (64º)
Spring : 300 lb Ti
Rider weight : 75kg

Amazing! Jackpot! The linear progression was sick and allowed the bike to blow through the travel and use most of it up. It finally felt more supple and easier to smash through rough bumps.

The 300lb Ti was perhaps a little soft, but it felt way more controlled on rough stuff. I think on a bike this adjustable, you'll need a range of springs to suit the different settings. When you put it in 9.5 inches of travel, you'll need a harder spring.

I'm still fiddling but this was what I did over the buller vic state round. Still reckon it'd be worth trying a 0.5º slacker head angle but for now I can't bothered.
 
VTSS350

VTSS350

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Great post adman. Which way did you adjust the shock to get Linear progression? What sort of shock are you running?

Shock progression : Middle
Travel : 9 inches
G3 Dropouts : Middle
Head angle : 64
Spring : 450 lb Ti
Rider weight : 90kg

Bike felt rough and a little unstable in the rough stuff. Front end tracked well and it cornered well in smooth berms. But the rear just didnt feel right.

So I only changed the rear spring down to 400lb. It helped but not by alot. The rear of the bike still feels rough over small fast bumps. I am coming off a BOS shock to the RC4 so I am not sure if it this the difference between shocks I am feeling.

Does Intense have a spring recomendation for rider weight?
 
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MB

MB

Intense Australia
Great idea F1234k! It's good to see all the M9 owners putting their ideas forth.

I initially had mine at 63, mid chainstay, 9" travel and middle progression setting. I have run it in the shorter stay setting once, but will be going back to the middle setting.

Now, I have the bike at 64, haven't tried it yet, but after wrestling with the front of the bike too much at 63 decided to go steeper. This combined with the chainstay adjustment should bring my weight a bit more forward on the bike, hopefully giving me that traction on the front that I need.

I will keep you posted with my feedback on the setup of the bike.

Great post Adman, I'm glad you found your setting at Buller.

FYI my bike is air sprung, and I will try to post some vivid setup tips soon. Oh yeah, I weigh 85kg and ride the medium size.

Go the M9!!
 
adman

adman

Likes Dirt
Linear progression is the highest bolt setting as shown in the manual.

I'm using a Fox RC4 shock with various springs, and feels sweet.

As I said before, I think intense recommends about 50 lbs too much spring weight. I'd take their spring weight and take about 50 off that.
 
VTSS350

VTSS350

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Intense recomended setting for my RC4 is 160psi, 3.5 Boost Valve progression, LSC 9 clicks out, HSC 1 revolution (clicks out) and rebound 1 revolution(clicks out)

Anyone know what thay meen by clicks out?

Does that mean LSC fully wound in then 9 clicks out?

Just a bit strange
 
Nerf Herder

Nerf Herder

Wheel size expert
There was a FOX Shock Tune article (Gwin, Atherton and somebody else) I think it was in MBAction.

Clicks out are from full off ... which I think is plush (off) to firm (on)

So 9 clicks out, is from full off ... 9 clicks of LSC

Anyway, thats how I've been doing it since reading the article
 
F1234K

F1234K

Likes Dirt
First weekend setup and thoughts:

I am coming from a Gambler with CCDB and 66 head angle setting.

Shock: CCDB.

Travel: 9.5" (I tried 9" first, but I only have a 375 Ti and then the rest are steel coils and in the 9" setting I wasn't getting the sag I wanted with my Ti, in 9.5" I am getting 30-32% so it feels good)

G3: short (the shortest this bike can go is still waaaay longer than what I am used to so it will be more stable regardless and I can keep the cornering tight)

Head Angle: +0.5 cup and combined with shorted G3 should be around 64.75 depending on fork crown to axle height (my local tracks are not steep at all and I really don't need a super slack HA.).

Shock progression: middle

Coil: 375 Ti with Thrust bearings (rider weight around 80kg)

My first few rides was mostly getting shock settings a bit more dialed. It is still way more closed than what I ran on my previous bike, but the VPP is making it feel super plush and controlled so I don't feel the need to open it too much more yet.

Cornering felt good, tracking over chatter was awesome, control was awesome, jumping was pretty good, but I think I need to try the Progressive (bottom) setting to see how that feels.

My local tracks have a lot of jumps and drops. Some jumps are fairly steep for big bikes and so jumping is quite important for me. I think the slightly steeper head angle, shorter G3 and possibly with the progressive setting this should be tops.

I have no complaints at the moment other than having to put a pedal in to clear jumps where I didn't have to before.

On the plus it feels a crap load better in the steep rough bits of the tracks than what I am used to. Way more controlled when things got nasty.

So this weekend is the progressive setting and possibly some more shock tuning.

P.S. If you check out the CC manual for shock settings you will notice the more progressive the settings the plusher the initial part of the shock should feel with more ramp up towards the end. Even in the most linear setting it is still progressive, just less so than the other settings.
 
F1234K

F1234K

Likes Dirt
Just for extra info, the E13 LG1+ guide fits on the M9. It needs two of the wider spacers that come with the guide to fit and then it will rub slightly on the chain when you are in the lowest gears (not really an issue for DH).

You can substitute the one spacer for a mid sized one and it should be perfect. 1 wide and 1 thin is not enough as it then rubs the chain on the higher gears which is not so good for DH.

With 2 wide spacers it clears the frame, but with anything less you will need to grind away a bit of the top guide, so my suggestion would be to leave it as is and just use the 2 wide spacers.

I ran with the slight chain rub on low gears last weekend and it doesn't cause any issues (mostly because I'm never in those gears :) ).
 
F1234K

F1234K

Likes Dirt
I see the thread has been moved, just bumping it to get it back into view :)

Tried the progressive setting yesterday, didn't much like it with my current shock setup.

I recon if you wanted to you could setup the shock properly for this progression and it will jump reallly well, but the bike already feels so good in the middle setting I just put it back and started tuning the shock around that instead. SO far so good. Opened up the compression a bit on high and also the rebound.
 
jrewing

jrewing

Eats Squid
was going to change from 0' to +.5 but i raised the forks through the triples. Now im going to try it in linear setting. Then switch to 9.5 mode in middle setting followed by 9.5 in progressive.
 
F1234K

F1234K

Likes Dirt
F1234K said:
I see the thread has been moved, just bumping it to get it back into view :)

Tried the progressive setting yesterday, didn't much like it with my current shock setup.

I recon if you wanted to you could setup the shock properly for this progression and it will jump reallly well, but the bike already feels so good in the middle setting I just put it back and started tuning the shock around that instead. SO far so good. Opened up the compression a bit on high and also the rebound.
Click to expand...
An update on this: I took the bike with these settings (middle progression, high speed open just past midway, low speed about midway) to another track which has quite a few big bike jumps on it of varying steepness.

Overall I could definitely feel it wanted to stick to the ground more than what I am used to, but it seemed to matter less on the bigger jumps than on the smaller ones. I guess if the kicker is steep enough then it sits deep enough into the travel to make less difference. On the smaller (less steep) booters it seemed to suck them up a bit. It felt incredibly stable over the bigger jumps.

I am going to try and tune the rear suspension setup a bit more to see if I can get it to pop more without loosing the awesome tracking and plow factor it has now. The benefits of plow and stability are definitely outweighing the con of not popping as much so I am not too worried, but it would be awesome to have the best of both worlds :)

Something I noticed as well is that sections of track where the track is a bit rough before jumps I am coming in faster than before so the lack of pop is overridden by the extra speed I am hitting the jumps at. I've even had to brake check on jumps where I did not have to before... On smoother sections is where I noticed the lack of pop since I am coming at the jump at about the same speed as before. So overall I am much happier since I am coming in faster and just have to boost it a bit more on the couple of jumps that need it.

P.S. when I said I didn't like the full progressive setting what I meant was it felt like I had 7" of travel instead of 9.5". It ramped up really quick, much more than I thought it would. At this point I had the low speed midway and the high speed two thirds closed. Opening the shock more would definitely have helped, but I wasn't having a very good riding day so I didn't bother playing with the settings. I will try it again soon with a more open shock to see what happens.
 
adman

adman

Likes Dirt
Ran the bike with the same settings I mentioned on page 1 for the super d this weekend.

The track is a 20 minute killer with four 1 minute uphill climbs, the rest is gnarly fire trails and steep loose boulder fields.

The M9 loved it! Pedalled like a boss up the hills (which nobody else in my U19s category could do, and that included a v10, a socom and a commencal), and destroyed all on the downhills. The bike could just deal with everything I put into it and never looked back. We're looking at 50 - 60 km/h on some seriously rough and steep fire trails, and I couldn't have felt more in control! Seriously fantastic bike.

Just a note, I was running the 9 inch travel setting for a while before, but for this weekend I extended it to 9.5 inches. This made the bike feel really soft, and get a bit bogged down when pedalling, so I had to chuck a 350 lb spring on to compensate. Like I said before, this bike needs a set of different springs to cope with the changing settings.

And for the record, I won. Clearly a race winning bike!
 
F1234K

F1234K

Likes Dirt
Some updates:

Went to NZ with the middle progression setting, 9" travel setting, shorter dropout and +5 degrees cup (so roughly 64.75 degree head angle). It loved it! There were some super steep tracks and then some hell fast bits with rough in between and it felt brilliant on everything.

As an experiment I put it in the middle dropout setting (so roughly 64.5 head angle and longer wheel base). The fast rough straights felt brilliant and this is where I caught up with the locals, corners were a bit more difficult and thus I lost the locals in the corners. Overall I think I will keep this setting as I can improve the cornering by improving my skills, I cannot really improve the flat out speed handling with skills as much.

When I got home I decided to drop in the 0 degree cup which put the head angle at roughly 64 degrees. Most of my local tracks are flat with lots of jumps. It felt like a dog to be honest. I didn't like it at all. Next day put the +5 back in and all is well again :).

I could probably have done with the 0 degree cup in NZ, but I didn't have it with me. Here in Sydney though it isn't really steep enough to justify it.
 
jrewing

jrewing

Eats Squid
I go 0 cup for flatter tracks and -5 for steeper. And I like the progressive setting. I ride a little further back rather than as much up front
I know what you mean about rough flat sections, awesome.
 
udi

udi

swiss cheese
Nerf Herder said:
There was a FOX Shock Tune article (Gwin, Atherton and somebody else) I think it was in MBAction.

Clicks out are from full off ... which I think is plush (off) to firm (on)

So 9 clicks out, is from full off ... 9 clicks of LSC

Anyway, thats how I've been doing it since reading the article
Click to expand...
That's actually wrong, clicks out means just that - clicks out (from full in / closed, i.e. maximum damping). How you could interpret that any other way is beyond me, but if someone means you start from zero damping, they'll say clicks in.

Just thought I'd clarify in case someone gets the wrong idea.
 
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