SETUP TIPS...

[Prologue]

I think it is misleading if you say it isn't about the setup. It definitely is about setup. You can shave 3-5 seconds off a lap in supercross by having a good setup for sure. Good settings allow fast turning and a fast pace through the whoops and choppy parts, when you have good timing and throttle control. If your setup is horrible there is no way to corner quickly or get through the whoops in a consistently fast manner. With that said, setup isn't going to bring you down to fast laptimes when you are 20 seconds off the pace, but it will improve your laptimes by getting you through turns and whoops faster and probably make you more consistent. For most rhythms it won't improve anything, though, so don't expect miracles.

I know I am not an uber fast guy, but this is what I do:

Control settings:
Turn the stability to 20 (this is only a baseline). --> Advanced: Crank the roll damping to 70 or so, crank the steering damping to 50-60 or so. Make the lean angle a little bigger by a couple degrees. Turn the steering strength and steering force to the max. Leveling to 35-40 or so.

Bike Settings:
Front: Strong spring, 45-75. Strong compression damping, 60-90. Weak rebound: 20-40. No preload. Some oil if you want it to be more progressive (get stiffer when it is closer to bottoming).
Rear: Weak rear spring, maybe 15-25 on tracks that aren't high speed, higher if the track it high speed. Low compression damping on rear, like 10. Rebound like 50 on rear. No preload unless you want to be able to slide more.

This bike setup is very loose but has good traction and whoops characteristics. Stiffen it for fast motocross tracks.


I wish there was a ride height adjustment too, I wouldn't mind swatting the back some.

[kzfr]

Thanks Prologue! I think setup is a personal settings. The more extreme is a sunspension! I dont know so good english to get it whats goin on!
I try get setting what i like. I like less stability and hard settings of sunspension but dont know how use settings to get extreme hard style riding (for testing and loosing harding like 10% of rear than front bla bla bla), i dont need traction or smothing corners.

[yzmxer608]

Here's a noob question. Can someone explain how changing the size of the sprockets effects the power? I know what it does on bicycles, but not in mx .

[brent26]

for the rear, i think its higher for sx and lower for mx. Thats how it is irl.

[Axle McOctane]

The shortest possible gearing (low-end torque, quick-revving, low top-speed) would be -2 front and +2 rear.

The tallest possible gearing (more top speed, higher spacing between gears) would be +2 front -2 rear.

[Prologue]

It moves the powerband around (higher or lower in groundspeed), a taller gear ratio means that the location of the powerband will be moved to a higher ground speed. In other words, you might hit 8k rpms at 35 mph in 3rd gear with one setup, but then you make the gear ratio 'taller' and it moves 8k in 3rd gear to 40mph. If you make the gear ratio 'shorter', then it moves down the speed at which the powerband kicks in, i.e. it was at 35mph, you lower the gear ratio and now 8k in 3rd gear is at 30 mph.

So, the big question is: what is a gear ratio and how do you change it?

(1) What is the gear ratio? Well, the gear ratio could be defined as one of two things, either the number of teeth on the rear divided by the number of teeth on the front, or the other way around, front/rear. Most times the gear ratio is given in the seemingly ass-backwards way where a higher gear ratio means lower top speed (rear divided by front) - i.e. 53 teeth on rear, 14 on front = 53/14 = 3.79 gear ratio. This way of thinking is not backwards when you think of it like this: A higher gear ratio means a higher 'mechanical advantage', which means more torque. OK, a higher gear ratio gives more torque, but a byproduct of the added torque is a lower top speed in that gear.

(2) How do you change the ratio? Well, you can change the ratio by messing with one of two things, either the front or rear sprocket (or both I guess). If you increase the number of teeth on the rear sprocket only, it means that the rear wheel is going to go around a lower number of times compared to the front sprocket (say the front sprocket is 14 teeth and turns once, the rear sprocket will now be displaced by 14 teeth from its original position, but reset the situation with more teeth on the back, turn the front sprocket once and the rear is still displaced by 14 teeth, but the angular spacing between the teeth is less, so the wheel turns less). This means adding teeth to the rear adds torque and lowers top speed. If you add teeth only to the front sprocket, it increases the number of times the rear wheel will go around compared to the front sprocket. This means lower torque, higher top speed. If you go the opposite way on these, the opposite effect happens. They are summarized below.

------------
Raise Teeth: Front - Increases top speed decreases torque; Rear - Decreases top speed, increases torque.
Lessen Teeth: Front - Decreases top speed, Increases torque; Rear - Increases top speed, decreases torque.
------------
Gear Ratio: Increase Gear Ratio - Decreases top speed, Increases torque; Decrease Gear Ratio - Increases top speed, decreases torque.
------------
The term 'taller' gearing is just slang for a lower gear ratio. It fits better with the idea of raising the top speed. The term 'shorter' gearing means the opposite, raising the gear ratio, lowering top speed.
------------


What does this have to do with power? Well, that is a sticky subject involving optimization problems and lots of math. Suffice to say that it doesn't change power much to change the gear ratios in the tiny amounts that we are doing in the game, the real advantage is in the placement of the power. If you need your 3nd gear to be right in the meat of the power band before the huge triple, you can adjust the position of this power by changing the gear ratio (raising the gear ratio lowers the speed at which it hits, lowering the ratio raises the speed).

Remember, changing the ratio merely means adding teeth or taking away teeth to one of the sprockets, and you can find the actual ratio by taking the rear tooth count divided by the front tooth count.


Note: You can go crazy with this and ask questions like, what if I add teeth to both? The answer to that is again a mathy subject but basically, the sprocket with the lower number of teeth will have the biggest effect when merely adding a tooth to both front and rear (same with taking off a tooth). So if you are looking for a little change, not a big one, you can say raise the front one tooth and then raise the rear a tooth or two. This will give you just a little bump in top speed. The actual ratio tells you what is going on so just divide it out to see what is happening (do the math).

[Servatis]

nice explanation prologue.

If you don't mind I'd like to use that for the help section of the new MXS bike setup app..

might actually do something with the gear ratio calculation in the setup editor but i'm not sure since there are some bikes that have a different amount of teeth.

[Prologue]

Sure, no problem.

[yzmxer608]

Wow, thanks Prologue! That helped a lot.

[FMXIAN]

haha i saved that in notepad so i can use it

MXS Bike Setup Application

[Klazyz]

Could i get the default Adv Stab settings?

[jlv]

Change the stability setting and it will reset them for whatever stability you choose.

[TBARRY34]

If you think about it though the majority of the people asking for "setups" don't actually need setups. Mittoc is right they need to practice if you are running a 2:42 on a track that people can run 2 minutes flat...that isn't setup. Setup will in the long run help you shave time off your laps although there is no right setup....Most of it is working on throttle control and body positioning. My setup has been something that was trial and error since I have started and it still is changing. I have days where it feels like my setup is wrong but 99% of the time it's I am giving it too much gas, not enough or am in the wrong gear. Like earlier I found out on one of the supercross tracks reason I couldn't triple quad was because I was seat bouncing (causing me to case) at first I thought it was my setup. Once I stopped seatbouncing I was clearing it fine. I have ran my current setup for 3 months and am still shaving time off laptimes everyday with nothing changed....just more practice. My brother for example...He uses my same exact setup yet can run nowhere near my laptimes...

I did exactly what I did in real life. Go ride a few laps get a feel for how the bike is handling...grabbed a screwdriver and put my compression from one end (completely soft) to completely stiff....just so I could get a feel of what changed. Did the same with rebound and eventually I got an understanding of what they actually do. (Try this in game) It's a pain in the ass but it's the best way. And Stocksy's post is FULL of great setups...it is just preference. I have tried lots of people's setups and still just ended up with something completely random that worked for me.

[raceboy]

yeah i got a problem to this not a tip but my setup sucks i dont under stand it and when i use some ones i take off and turn and my bike falls over and i got the demo because i just heard of the game and i have posted some ? and no one has repiled back so if u guys could help me that would be great and i no this is not a tip but you people no what your talking about so thanks raceboy.

[yamahaman]

I made my own setups and i like them, not take a long time even... maybe when i get faster i should make better..