XS650 – Clutch Upgrade! More Disks = More Grippage

Been working SLOWLY on my latest XS650 Build.  Knowing that I was putting in some high compression JE pistons, rephasing, heavily porting the head and installing Lectron carbs, I knew for a fact that the stock clutch was not going to be happy.  My Black and White bike is only 707CC’s and 10:1 compression and I go through clutches fairly often.  This one is going to be even more powerful at nearly 760CC’s and 11:1 compression.

I had seen a picture years ago of an 8 pack clutch setup.  It was sweet.  I knew I needed this.  So I tore into my box o’ parts, and started mixing and matching different clutch baskets until I had some good donors for machining.

Here is a picture of a stock 6 disk clutch pack.

After some extremely careful measuring with my Patent Pending Eyecrometers, I started machining the parts to fit.

 

 

The places you see Blue Marker are what I machined.  I had to remove some material from several locations on the inner basket.

I also had to modify the outer basket quite a bit as well.  I clearanced the inside of the outer basket as seen here to clear the newly modified inner basket.

I should have taken an in progress shot of the below modification, but the box in blue basically shows how much material was removed from the base of the “fingers” of the basket.  I did all of this with a few modified hand files, and a dremel tool.

I fitted up 8 new disks and metal clutch plates.  I had to modify the outside of the basket plate just a tad to make sure the clearances inside the clutch cover remained stock, and removed some material from the inside to help clear a bit more as well…

8 DISKS!!  It fits great, only took a few hours, and should improve my ability to get the power to the ground.

There were a few more modifications required to the nut, and basket, but if you are trying to get this done yourself, you can probably figure out the rest of it.  As always, if you have questions, just ask…

Hugh