BEC Clutch

[The Great Fandango]

Was a rather depressing time for me yesterday at Elvington...

After getting several issues sorted with the car the clutch decided to give up during my second session of the day.

It had begun to slip in 5th & 6th gears earlier this year but I'm told this can be normal. It just got worse very quickly and before I could nurse her in it was just slipping permanently with no ability to pull the car.

T'was game over by 11:30am!

So here come the BEC beginner's questions : -

1. Can you recommend anyone/anywhere to buy replacement clutches (Yamaha Fazer / R1)

2. I've heard people talk about upgrades to Barnett etc. Is there a clutch out there that can put my mind at ease and take the kind of thrashing I'm going to throw at it on the track? I presume there is because a lot of guys run turbos etc.

3. Who has tried fitting two pressure plates instead of just the one?

I just want peace of mind to know I've got a good setup for the next trackday but I'm not looking to spend mega-bucks unless I have to.

Cheers for any help

[Kevin Jones]

Shame you had problems, I was there in the black westy, great not to have to deal with the wet for once this year.

Standard advise is use normal plates but uprated (stronger) barnett springs with any bike oil.  Last set I got was from pdq but there are lots who do the barnett gear. It shouldn't slip in any gear. My blade lasts about 18mths with that setup but it gets some abuse on sprints as well.

Just make sure you have some slack in the clutch cable so that its not draging and if you fit new friction plates soak in oil 24hrs before fitting.

[samcooke]

You hear good and bad about Barnett depending on who you talk to so I reasoned it wasn't worth the outlay.

Stick in some new Yamaha frictions, scotchpad up the steels (provided they're not too blue) and get a second diaphragm (c. £20). This has done the job no problems on my R1 Fury with about 4 track days and 3000 road miles so far.

[DIY Si]

Most people I've spoken to have used stock plates (from what I've heard steer well clear of EBC plates) and Barnett or similar springs. When mine went, I just replaced everything with stock parts and it was fine.

[Terry Everall]

And dont use fully synthetic oil

[barney]

nice avatar mr E

[funbobby]

Nice Beasty El Tel - what on earths in that!

We found that for track day use - we were to use Castrol R4 (fully Synth) to look after the engine and for Sprints we used Castrol GPS(Semi) which looks after the clutch a bit more for burnouts and heavy starts etc.

Worked a treat in the end.

[Terry Everall]

The beast has a Duratec in it  

[funbobby]

After all those years with a BEC....SBD lump?

[gee_fin]

Went through similar issues with our R1, it's as though some engines are perfectly fine with normal plates and nothing done to them, some will just slip like b*******y pretty much regardless. Really seemed down to each individual engine

In the end, the bulletproof solution was Barnett Steels, Barnett Carbon Frictions, a Barnett Spring Clutch Conversion (SR3), a billet swing-arm and uprated springs from Holeshot Racing. Never slipped once after that and the clutch feel was back to that of a decent twin-plate clutch. However, this was on a ballasted car probably 150kg heavier than most (so can be considered an extreme install).

In the early days of trying to solve the issue oil made a HUGE difference. The liklihood of standard plates slipping on s***ty oil highlighted. Tried Putoline, Halfords(!), Silkolene, Red Line, Mobil 1 etc, the Silokelene superbike oil and Red Line proving the most resistant.

Pre-soaking the frictions is essential. Absolutely 100% essential. Best results we found were soaking them in rough Castrol or similar. Heard stories of people lightly cooking these in an oven with oil but we didn't make it that far! To be perfectly honest, there was never a huge shown difference between stock Yamaha Frictions and the Barnetts kevlar/carbon ones, we just ended up down the complete Barnett route as I was sick of changing clutches.

Briefly tried the twin diaphragm route but didn't get on with it, the feel from the SR3 spring conversion feeling so much better so kept with that.

In the end, I would try a change of oil and some Yamaha frictions, soak them up and try. If still slipping, SR3 conversion and spring change from Holeshot will be the end of your woes.

Some info on it all here - http://www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk/technic....ex.html

About the only plus is at least clutches are b****y cheap for them, £40 odd for a set of frictions every now and again (and 15 mins to swap them over) is thankfully not too silly.

Addition:

Also worth noting is the way you drive the car - slipping the clutch is a no no - that's the quickest way to burn them out. Minimal slip/launch is required. Frequent oil changes to remove the crap in the oil and you should be good to go.

[The Great Fandango]

Gee_Fin - thank you, that's REALLY helpful

Thanks to everyone else too.

Just need to source the right place to buy bits from now (waiting for Holeshot to get back to me).

Regards

Kyle, Leeds

[gixermark]

holeshot have moved to N Ireland.. make sure you have correct contact details ?

I'm sure andy at ab can help too..

Mark.