996 bip showa
 

this might sound daft but when full compression is reached on the forks does the dust seal touch the bottom of the leg or is there a gap? if so does anyone know what it is

no should not touch
but couldn't tell you what the gap would be.
have you done the tie band trick to see where it gets down to

yeah 19mm but thats after increasing preload but now its to hard & need to back it off a bit , compression & rebound feel good just need to soften it up but dont no how far till they bottom,do run quite high rear ride hight (how i like it) which aint gonna help much?

I take it this is when you are braking hard from going very quickly, not at standstill pushing down holding the brake lever in !

Check your compression settings - less compression = more travel and hence easier to get the dust seal to the fork bottom.

bump stop should prevent dust seal from touching the bottom leg, and properly set compression damping should stop you hitting the bump stop under most riding conditions.

If you're bottoming under normal riding adda few clicks of compression damping and see how you go.

With the tie wrap trick, I aim for around 10-15mm spare after hard braking runs. Not sure what the official figures are, but someone like Skidlids or Shazaam will have a more detailed (and accurate) answer.

Preload only really affects your sag. Which should be around 35mm

Try setting sag first, then adjusting (upping) compression damping a bit to see how that affects the forks bottoming.

Could be your valves are shot, oil weights wrong (too light) or a combination of the two.

pretty quick but not track speed , it was diving to quick so increased compression 3 clicks off max & preload showing 4 gaps but got to back it off & if i,ve only got 19mm of travel left i can see me havin trouble come track time & i,m only 13 stone honestly

As your in Notts I would suggest going to see Nelly at Cornerspeed and see what he finds

gonna go out tommorro & give it some back wheel skimin tarmac & gradualy decrease preload might just scrape in mr s,10mm mark,dont think theres a fork problem as such , had similar prob at dono with my race bike & ron haslam said thicker oil (as mr s just said) problem solved, i,ll have to see ?