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Fox 38 grip plush setup

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ridetothehills

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hello,

my Altitude has a 38 Performance fork with a grip damper. I found a setting with proper sag, compression and rebound, which works solidly.

But the bike doesnt feel very plush, especially in rocky terrain while riding fast. Before the Altitude I had a Slayer with a ZEB Select+, Charger 3, no butter cups. It took repeated hits way better. On the same trail I could let the brakes go and let the bike eat the rough terrain. On the Altitude, the fork feels stiffer and the bike less planted.
I toyed with the idea of altering the settings again, but the downsides would probably outweigh the upside of having more plushness. Less mid stroke, softer overall setup.

Is there a way to get the grip damper setup like the Zeb or would you advise switching the fork to a Zeb?

Thanks
 
#3 ·
ridetothehills said:
38 Performance fork with a grip damper
Click to expand...
Could you tell us your fork part number? There have been new midvalve tunes for the standard Grip for MY25, and I heard they do make a difference.

Other than that, the Grip is difficult to meaningfully adjust. Maybe this is worth a read.
 
#5 ·
ridetothehills said:
Hello,

my Altitude has a 38 Performance fork with a grip damper. I found a setting with proper sag, compression and rebound, which works solidly.

But the bike doesnt feel very plush, especially in rocky terrain while riding fast. Before the Altitude I had a Slayer with a ZEB Select+, Charger 3, no butter cups. It took repeated hits way better. On the same trail I could let the brakes go and let the bike eat the rough terrain. On the Altitude, the fork feels stiffer and the bike less planted.
I toyed with the idea of altering the settings again, but the downsides would probably outweigh the upside of having more plushness. Less mid stroke, softer overall setup.

Is there a way to get the grip damper setup like the Zeb or would you advise switching the fork to a Zeb?

Thanks
Click to expand...
What sort of sag do you have, and how much travel are you using? How many volume spacers? I wonder if you're hitting a wall of progression early on?
 
#10 · (Edited)
ridetothehills said:
I run 20% sag, using all travel only on very hard impacts. VS = 3.
Click to expand...
You're very similar to my weight then. And I was mostly checking to make sure you weren't using like 30% or more sag on the fork chasing plushness, then cramming it full of volume spacers, and just hitting a wall of progression.

TBH, like Curveball, I am also on a Lift Damper (I never even rode my 38 without the Lift. I got the Chassis for $400 or something, and did the damper upgrade as part of the swap over from my Mezzer). I think I'm at ~90psi, with 1 volume spacer, at 170mm of travel. I'm not clapping the bottom on my bigger hits, but on my mellow-ish local trails, on the bigger sends I can still use all but the last 20-30mm, which seems about right to me.

EDIT: Here is my post in the giant lift thread, if that helps you at all.

 
#11 ·
Not really much to do with a Grip 1 damper. I run them wide open compression and fast as possible on the rebound. Service the lowers and air spring if this hasn’t been done already. I feel there is too much production tolerance differences on these Grip dampers why some have ok results and other hate them.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Grip has no midstroke support so going fast with repeat hits is it's biggest weakness. You have to run the compression really high (60%+) to prevent it from getting too deep in the travel but that makes it feel harsh. If you ride fast upgrading to a Grip 2 is huge, you might be able to just find a 27.5 38 Elite/Factory for less than the cost of a standalone damper for the cheapest way to get a Grip 2.
 
#16 ·
Changing the compression shims to my25 from my22 makes a big difference, it goes from no damping over very little damping at 3 o'clock to decent damping at 5 o'clock now. Just dont ride it at 6, the shims will warp.
On my 34 but I guess Grip are all the same.

I would replace it with Grip2 or whatever.
 
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