Clutch question for 124

[Raleigh111]

What's the lightest spring pressure needed to hold 140–tq with a vpc 95.  What clutch disks hold the best but don't break the bank? Are the added disk kits worth it? Would be nice to use stock spring with a vpc 95 but I don't think it will hold. Maybe better disks is my thought?

[Don D]

The rekluse seems to check all the boxes. The liners for the drive dogs are also important and rekluse has liners that cover those. This clutch will work well for you unless the bike is going to be treated very rough.

[turboprop]

What's the lightest spring pressure needed to hold 140–tq with a vpc 95.  What clutch disks hold the best but don't break the bank? Are the added disk kits worth it? Would be nice to use stock spring with a vpc 95 but I don't think it will hold. Maybe better disks is my thought?

You have not provided enough of the equation to properly answer. I lightweight bike with a high final drive ratio requires less spring pressure than a heavy bike with highway gearing.

Although most clutch discussions on this page seem to be focused on engine output, the work load on the other side of the clutch is equally important. Clutches are not a one size fits all.

FWIW - My red/white For with a TC124 putting out 158hp gets by with a Rekluse clutch pack and a light spring. This bike is stripped right down to the bare nothing, carbon fiber fenders and anything not required by law has been removed. I beat on this bike pretty hard and would like some slip at launch.

My blue/white FXR, also with a TC124 is setup very different. This engine would be ideal in a heavy ass bagger. Gobs of torque everywhere. Small fairing, back seat w/rest, turn signals, the works. I forget the final gearing ut it is set up to cruise the highway comfortably at felony speeds. The clutch in this bike consists of a carbon fiber clutch pack, a VPC95 and a light spring. No clutch slip anywhere.

[Raleigh111]

What's the lightest spring pressure needed to hold 140–tq with a vpc 95.  What clutch disks hold the best but don't break the bank? Are the added disk kits worth it? Would be nice to use stock spring with a vpc 95 but I don't think it will hold. Maybe better disks is my thought?

You have not provided enough of the equation to properly answer. I lightweight bike with a high final drive ratio requires less spring pressure than a heavy bike with highway gearing.

Although most clutch discussions on this page seem to be focused on engine output, the work load on the other side of the clutch is equally important. Clutches are not a one size fits all.

FWIW - My red/white For with a TC124 putting out 158hp gets by with a Rekluse clutch pack and a light spring. This bike is stripped right down to the bare nothing, carbon fiber fenders and anything not required by law has been removed. I beat on this bike pretty hard and would like some slip at launch.

My blue/white FXR, also with a TC124 is setup very different. This engine would be ideal in a heavy ass bagger. Gobs of torque everywhere. Small fairing, back seat w/rest, turn signals, the works. I forget the final gearing ut it is set up to cruise the highway comfortably at felony speeds. The clutch in this bike consists of a carbon fiber clutch pack, a VPC95 and a light spring. No clutch slip anywhere.

Good points. It is a road glide with stock gearing. I had the heavy spring on a previous 145tq build and it sucked in traffic.

[RTMike]

Bandit sportsman is a standard upgrade here when a high output engine is developed

[itsafatboy]

Bandit sportsman , great clutch ,  probably the best get from bandit not anywhere else

[hrdtail78]

Look into the Energy One extra plate.  Standard size first plate.  No studder spring, and the pads on the fibers are twice size of stock.

[Nick L]

Zippers stocks Bandit

[tdrglide]

The rekluse seems to check all the boxes. The liners for the drive dogs are also important and rekluse has liners that cover those. This clutch will work well for you unless the bike is going to be treated very rough.

With that much torque might also add a new billet clutch basket. Then you can romp on it

[838]

Both my TC's are 140+ tq. Evo industries baskets, rekluse plates, twin power manual tensioners and SE compensators. Hold great. My bagger used to have stock plates, heavy spring and vpc 95, it was temperamental at low speed around town, stop and go stuff. No issues now.

[Raleigh111]

Both my TC's are 140+ tq. Evo industries baskets, rekluse plates, twin power manual tensioners and SE compensators. Hold great. My bagger used to have stock plates, heavy spring and vpc 95, it was temperamental at low speed around town, stop and go stuff. No issues now.

What's with all the manual chain adjusters now? Am I missing something?

Look into the Energy One extra plate.  Standard size first plate.  No studder spring, and the pads on the fibers are twice size of stock.

are you using a stock spring? How is lever pull?

The rekluse seems to check all the boxes. The liners for the drive dogs are also important and rekluse has liners that cover those. This clutch will work well for you unless the bike is going to be treated very rough.

thanks HD, a lot seem to like the rekluse. It must work good.

[838]

The auto adjuster on my bagger cinched up so tight the chain cut through it like butter. Don't know if it was riding style or the tq of the motor but with the manual I know it's at spec and not moving.

[Thermodyne]

What's the lightest spring pressure needed to hold 140–tq with a vpc 95.  What clutch disks hold the best but don't break the bank? Are the added disk kits worth it? Would be nice to use stock spring with a vpc 95 but I don't think it will hold. Maybe better disks is my thought?

IMHO, at that power you need an aftermarket basket.  So that opens the whole parts book as far as what you can run.  More disk area will allow you to run a lighter spring.

I started out with a SE VPC on carbon plates and a 103 spring.  Worked great at 100/100. not so much at 129/130.  SE spring would hold it, but the lever pull was real hard.



So I went with a Barnette VPC coil spring plate so I could try and run just enough to hold it, without all the extra that came with the SE plate.  After some issues with that plate and needing a taller minimum stack height, it worked OK but still had a lot of lever effort.



Then it broke the basket.  So I went with a Rivera VPC Pro Clutch.  Just a black spring with real manageable lever pull.  Works fine at 129/130, even with a 30 tooth motor sprocket.  The Pro Clutch basket does away with the sharp edges on the tab cutouts, and uses the same wide plates as the old big twin Pro Clutch.

[kd]

Evo Industries basket (for strength) and a Bandit Sportsman to hold the power. A great spring and shim selection.  No doubt you'll stop looking.  You get what you pay for and it will hold more than you are asking it to do.  No hat required.  Do it once and move on.

[turboprop]

Evo Industries basket (for strength) and a Bandit Sportsman to hold the power. A great spring and shim selection.  No doubt you'll stop looking.  You get what you pay for and it will hold more than you are asking it to do.  No hat required.  Do it once and move on.

Also great for doing wheelies on bikes with high output engines.

[Don D]

Ed what would be a good clutch setup for a street/strip street bagger series bike making a lot of high early torque and 145sq. Rider is 160lbs and bike must be as it comes off the street to race, rules. I was thinking slip off the line then a lock-up, just not sure the best way to accomplish that or even if this is the best strategy.  It wants to wheelie bad now.

[turboprop]

Ed what would be a good clutch setup for a street/strip street bagger series bike making a lot of high early torque and 145sq. Rider is 160lbs and bike must be as it comes off the street to race, rules. I was thinking slip off the line then a lock-up, just not sure the best way to accomplish that or even if this is the best strategy.  It wants to wheelie bad now.

Not surprised about the tendency to wheelie. Seems the online bagger crowd with big block engines only really care about seeing clutch slip on a dyno chart. IME, there is a bit more to it.

All to often we see posts like 'The X clutch holds my 124, no slip'.  Thats great, but the complete equation is the force on one side of the clutch and the load on the other side. A 124 in a heavy bike has much different requirements than the same engine in a light bike. Physics. It is what it is.

All that being said, IME, a clutch that uses wide friction plates (Not going to discuss brand names), a very light spring, and a plate with tunable fly weights is the ticket. When I was crewing for an AHDRA Pro Stock team, the bulk of our adjustments or tuning between rounds was to the clutch. After every run data from the onboard recorder would be analyzed in great detail by the tuner while the deck hands pulled the clutch and measured the spring pressure for each spring. Was interesting to see ow print pressures would change slightly after every round. We had big boxes of springs compartmented by pressure. Also had a large selection of flyweights. .

Back to the street clutch. I have a clutch pack that is only for use on the dyno. Heavy spring, wide plates, etc. Like the Bandit reference below, it is like a light switch. No slip even at WOT at 2k rpm on a HC 124 in a bagger. That clutch gets pulled out after the engine tuning has been completed. My red/white FXR is stripped right down to the bare nothings, CF fenders, etc. With 160hp at the wheel, most on this forum would think it needs a strong light switch style clutch. Nope. It has a Rekluse pack in an evolution industries basket with a variable pressure plate that has been modified to allow the weights to be easily swapped out. The spring is the lightest spring I could find in my stash. In its unmodified oem form it was still too stiff. I had to lengthen the cuts in it. I also had to adjust the weights on the pressure plate. Not really sure if they are lighter or heavier now than what came out of the box as there has been a lot of swapping around of the weights.  In it's present state, the lever pull is nothing. Seriously, it is ridiculously light, which is very helpful for consistent launches. On a prepared track, I can almost just dump the clutch on launch and not spin or wheelie. The clutch is configured differently for the street as it is not as sticky.

I am probably leaving some stuff out.

Final thought on this, the outlaw bagger bikes are consistently doing 8 seconds without wheelie bars and DOT tires. Lots of electrics involved but they are also running an engine driven clutch, vs the transmission driven clutches that harley are equipped with from the factory. When these clutches were brought into play, everyones ET and 60' times decreased. George Bryce explains the differences in the to types of clutches in great detail on his youtube channel.

[turboprop]

Pictures or it didn't happen.

Here are some clutch related pictures from my red bike over the years. For various reasons the current configuration is not shown.

Solid engine sprocket, Bandit solid shoe, Evo Ind Basket, Rekluse clutch pack, VPC-95 unmodified



Solid engine sprocket, Bandit solid shoe, Evo Ind Basket, Bandit Sportman clutch



Broken STD primary case, OEM compensator, oem shoe, broken Diamond primary chain, broken oem '98 and up clutch basket, Bandit Sportsman clutch.



Rekluse clutch pack in an Evo Ind basket. Those little inserts all had to be trimmed. Their location on the perimeter of the basket required close attention to get their lengths the same. In the end I weighed all of them on a triple beam and used a file to equalize their weights.


This shows the two bearings and a custom spacer that go inside the fifth gear on the main shaft.



This is how the bearings and spacer are stacked up inside the gear. The gear has been back cut, cryo treated and micro polished. The tool to the left is used to set the bearings to the correct depth.




Broken oem primary chain



Broken STD unobtainium inner primary case



More fun



Stupid is supposed to hurt



Won't do that again



This one worked well, but had limited options for replacement clutch packs. Spring was way to heavy for my purposes. Ben at Primo was a dick.



Adjusting each of the cover bolts to run true when the clutch lever was pulled. This was the only way to ensure a drag free clutch. I liked the adjustability of it, but didnt like having to adjust it.



I did a bunch of A-B comparisons of various clutches on a dyno.



The Evo style engine/trans interface was alright for mild engines. Not ideal for use with big blocks. Here the mounting holes are shown reinforced with steel inserts.



Been there, done that. Won't be doing this again.


FXR buddies out smashing.



My three 124" FXRs.



I cant stand bike shows or the people that regularly put their bikes in shows. Gay. A friend talked me into it. The winning argument was it had professional judges and I was sort of interested in their feedback.





All FXRs





How they begin





And how they turn out

[jmorton10]

Hey Ed,

Isn't the best setup always the one you just  bought for a ton of $ ?? lol

~John

[turboprop]

Hey Ed,

Isn't the best setup always the one you just  bought for a ton of $ ?? lol

~John

Definitely, and you must defend it at all costs and try to convince others that it is the best.

[jmorton10]

Definitely, and you must defend it at all costs and try to convince others that it is the best.

Absolutely lol

~John

[Jonny Cash]

Evo Industries checks all the boxes for me anymore on clutches. Their baskets are a thing of beauty, and they stand behind their products.

[biggzed]

Hey Turboprop - Is that Dan Baisley in the picture with you from 2016? I don't know him but have met him a couple of times. His shop is about 30 minutes from me and they have done some work for me in the past. I haven't seen him in years, but that was my gut reaction when I saw it.

Zach

[turboprop]

Hey Turboprop - Is that Dan Baisley in the picture with you from 2016? I don't know him but have met him a couple of times. His shop is about 30 minutes from me and they have done some work for me in the past. I haven't seen him in years, but that was my gut reaction when I saw it.

Zach

Yes, that is Dan and Lynette Baisley in my garage in NC.

[biggzed]

That is pretty cool. He is a hell of a nice guy.

Zach

Hey Turboprop - Is that Dan Baisley in the picture with you from 2016? I don't know him but have met him a couple of times. His shop is about 30 minutes from me and they have done some work for me in the past. I haven't seen him in years, but that was my gut reaction when I saw it.

Zach

Yes, that is Dan and Lynette Baisley in my garage in NC.