Hey all I was so happy to be switching over from the dark side only to have my brandy new bike have a clutch that doesnt grab. Low end it is fine, once it gets above 6.5k rpm I'm not moving(only with a minute amount of throttle, I have yet to hit wide open). I have a great deal of experience with older bikes (newest one Ive owned was a 2000 zx9) and I have replaced quite a few clutches for friends and replaced mine when needed. But on a bike with only 950 miles?? I was a little disappointed. The service guy at my dealer told me I should not be letting the revs go above 6000 for the first 2000 miles??? (Any opinions on that would be greatly appreciated) Then another service guy told me after those first 600 miles go have fun. So I called up Honda and tried to get their opinion. But couldnt get a number out of them. Anyway they told me to bring it into the dealer and have it checked out for warranty. So I just dropped it off today. I know the chances of them fixing it are slim, seeing its a wear and tear item. I have 1240 miles on the bike, and im hoping I get somewhat of a positive answer. when the tech was bringing the bike in I looked over to see him chirping my tire, and he says "your clutch slips? "with a puzzled look his face. I said yes, but when I am moving. And he brought it in looking a little confused. I am hoping it is a good confused lol Anyway sorry to be babbling on, I was just wondering if anyone else has heard of, or had a simliar problem.

 

well here's a update. I was called about an hour and a half after i dropped the bike off and was told the problem was the clutch springs. I could wait to hear from honda or the tech offered to put in a set of barnett race springs for $40. what would you do?? So the long and short of it is now I have a properly nasty grabbing clutch, that makes me fight with it to keep the front end down

 

Clutch springs??! Did any of them break?

Either some springs arebroken (not highly likely)or the clutch cable's too tight.

I'm gonna say your dealer's trying to soak you for $40 plus the cost of the Barnetts. Go back and make sure there's some play on the clutch lever before you commit to anything.

Something sounds fishy and it'd the first time in my experience where clutch springs not only broke, but were considered "normally wearing" items that aren't covered under warranty.

You can go above 6k but I wouldn't stay there too long while your engine's breaking in.

Another thing is to vary theRPM's until break-in is complete. That part is very important.

 

Since you already have the bike there, have them throw in the Barnett Springs while it is apart. To me the $40 for better springsis better than hearing that the clutch is fried. I had a Ninja 650R that had some slippage issues, and it was a known problem. I replaced the springs with Barnetts and the issue was gone. I recommend them.

 

Upgrade to the better springs, Honda will just replace with OEM anyways.

Break in period is for the birds. once your rings and cam lobesare set it doesn't matter what rpms you run. That takes about 20 min max.

When I build a car motor I start it run it about 2500 to 3000 rpm for about 5 minutes shut it down let it cool make all adjustments and run it (plus change the oil after 500 miles) if its going to break it will do it on initial start up.

If you ever watch horsepower tv, they do a fresh build put the engine on a dyno to tune it and then do a full pull to get hp numbers. IM sure there not putting 600 or 2000 miles on it before that.

 

The dealer wasnt charging me the 40 it was the tech. He asked if I wanted to just pay him 40 and he'd do it , and tell the dealer I wasnt interested in them fixing it I will do it myself. So I went ahead and did it and it works great