I learned with the Elka's I bought for my KQ that even when you buy snazzy shocks with great repute, if you crank up the preload so that the shock/spring unit is working at the top of its range then you have wasted the whole exercise.
I did that, the shocks arrived with the preload rings all the way down so I merrily cranked and cranked, preloading until the machine would ride nice and high. And I found that the goddam Elkas were no better than the shocks I took off! What had I paid all that money for?
Then one day the light bulb came on when I read someone mention to think about those Baja racing buggies. Watch a video, they ride in the center of their suspension travel. The cab floats along and the wheels go up and down like a spider's legs on a hot plate.
It hit me (no pun) If your shocks are wound up tight for ground clearance, then when you go over a pothole the wheel has nowhere to extend into that hole, it's already topped out, no extension left. So the whole machine must drop on that side, then when it hits the other side of the pothole the machine hammers into it and the quad gets jarred back up. Might as well be riding a hardtail Harley. We get so hung up on ground clearance we forget that the suspension has to work. (we can just get a good skidplate and when it has to touch bottom, no sweat, let er hit.
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But then when you only have two inches of shock travel to work within, how much can you really do?
I intend to get some Elka's and I'll report what I find. A couple of members have already reported that Elkas on CFM products are a night and day difference.