That is my exact feelings with the white HC spring; hate the high engagement RPM. That is why I was curious about your setup (using the stock spring) and trying out the gray HC spring. As for tuning the primary and secondary kit together, my only reasoning behind not doing it was to obtain a benchmark of how the sled ran stock, then with HC primary kit & stock secondary, and finally HC primary and HC-X secondary. I have the silver Yamaha secondary spring and was wanting to see if I could get decent results using it before moving to the HC-X.
Concerning the shims, woud you happen to recall what your engagement was without them since you said the higher RPM was achieved with tightening the secondary spring?