DesertX Stock Suspension Upgrades

Its been widely discussed that upgrading the stock KYB suspension makes the bike ride much better. I've personally sold and installed multiple sets of the TracTive components. However, not everyone wants to spend a lot of money to upgrade the suspension on this bike. I set out to improve the stock suspension components so people on a budget can have a better ride.

Not owning one myself, I borrowed one from the Ducati dealership in Portland (OR) I had a spare set of stock components one of my customers left with me when he upgraded to the TracTive products.

I rode the bike as I received it from the owner. He's a big guy, around 240 w/o gear so the end result is we were for sure going to Respring for him. For the sake of my testing, I rode with stock springs on his components and my revised components. Aside from my comments below, I do find the stock suspension to be a decent ride for those who are not riding aggressively, or are not riding off-road.

Initial impressions:
1) A ton of brake dive
2) A lot of deceleration dive
3) A lot of acceleration squat.
4) Below 35 mph it feels ok off-road when hitting potholes and mild washboard. Above that you start feeling the deficiencies
5) Riding up a semi-whooped trail, you notice how under sprung it is. To note, I am 205 w/o gear. I rode with MX Boots, Arai XD Helmet, and a Oneal Baja Jacket (not overly heavy)
6) Preload was maxed out on fork and shock (as received)

Opening up the forks, they use a split function (you all know this) much like a lot of other forks. Rebound on one side with no base valve. Compression on the other fork with a shim mid-valve, and a simple check valve base compression valve.

Improvements:
1) Replaced compression check valve only with a shimmed High Speed compression valve which is fully tunable. This required machining on the stock part. Changed shim stacks to fit my parameters.
2) Shock is a simple re-valve, no need for any other modifications. Originally only ran with a modified compression stack, but ended up redoing the rebound as well since it wasn't keeping up with the stock springs, let alone much stiffer springs.

Test riding:
#1-3 above were largely dialed out. To note, I had minimal spring preload on both the shock and the fork yet still saw those improvements.
Taking it on the same loop as before, while still undersprung, the bike still held up in the stroke much better, with it being less apparent. Someone at 180-200 lbs may not even need to Respring.
I tried a few different shim setups for my new arrangement, settling on one that has good hold up, but is nice and plush, even when hitting potholes.
Even the on-road Performance felt more confidence inspiring. I hit a section of Hwy 6 on the way to Tillamook (locals know what I'm talking about) that is rather rough and with the improvements, it was far better.

The final piece is springing the bike for Rider weight. I ended up installing new front springs I had made to OEM dimensions, coupled with the 0800-0225 Eibach spring for Rider weight. The front springs do not require any adapters/ tomfoolery to install since they are built to OEM spec. I will be stocking these springs in different rates for riders up to 320 lbs.

Right base valve is from a DesertX. The one on the left is a similar base valve from the Aprila Toureg 660.