alright guys i want to talk about this tusk clutch. it was installed brand new on my bike when i did the rebuild. it had about 20-25 dyno pulls and two trips to dumont both time i only made it up the hill a couple times til i ran into issues that ended the day for me. second time around was this clutch, it got smoke like swishersweet!

the clutch springs were new 250r HD springs and all fibers and plates were brand new. i have a lockout which i thought would prevent this from happening or at least prolong this. let me know where i went wrong? or was my mistake simply going with a tusk? im gonna be buying a new clutch soon, is OEM the only way to go for me?

here are the pics first three fibers are converted to steels lol the rest as you can see were about to break also...

what did the steels look like? my tusk smoked the first day at the hill, maybe 3-4 passes

What oil are you running ???

steels looked okay, just black from all this other stuff burning...


honda red bottle tranny fluid...

oh nice...this jus makes me wanna take out my tusk clutch n look at it...i've had mine in for about 2 months n haven't had a problem so far, no slippage either

Dang Bad......I havnt seen a clutch that bad since my PRE-lockout days using OEM fibers....

as you know....I have been running the Tusk clutch packs for quite some time... and have NEVER had a failure.... I replace it about once a year irregardless....but the last time I burnt thru the fibers to the metal discs was when I was running the factory OEM clutch packs ($150 a pop).... and at times I would burn thru a set so quickly that the bike would not even move in gear.... had to push my quad into the trailer on two separate occasions...... probably same issue here.....

since running the Tusk packs with CR500 springs....I have never looked back... and I just tore my engine apart for tranny repairs....and the clutch fibers looked excellent....so I had to mic them in order to know for sure whether they were still in spec...and they were... so the whole clutch pack is gonna be reused..... you might wanna take a look at how well those 250R HD springs are working.... I know on mine I never used them cuzz they seems to wanna rub on the pressure plate...I was afraid they would not want to engage/disengage as needed.. especially with the lockout....just a thought

I do know that I had my worst clutch issues when using the Judder mod.... not sure why...cuzz in THEORY you would think the judder mod would help tighten the clutch... but I know I had some issues and went back to using the judder spring and it sure cured a lot of headaches for me.....just makes it a little harder to start in gear with clutch pulled in.....

I also run my tranny fluid a bit OVER full in my lockout.....it helps given the small transfer holes which allow the fluid to flow from the clutch to the tranny on these 06 models....

you might get more responses in the 'engine' section..... I know this thread belongs in this section... but sometimes it helps to move them around... so long as no one complains.....


good luck....and I cant speak for others..... and my build is not as strong as some of yours... but I have had far better luck with the Tusk packs than with factory..... jmho....g

Greg,

thanks for all your input man! i really appreciate the fact that you took the time to write this up. i think what im gonna do is run an oem crf clutch and purchase a tusk to take with me riding for a back up. im hopping that this clutch was just bad luck or something...

thanks

aldo

i have had a lot of clutch and trans problems in 06+ 450r . the trans problems stem from clutch the best
clutch set i have found is oem less juter spring or a crf 450 witch has all frition plates the are the same . the spring
that come with the crf are ok for a stock engine if it has been moded at all the clutch will heat fade and clutch
will fail . the first sign of clutch fade is pops out of gear for no reason. i use 3 barnett 450r hd springs for stock to
med builds and 3 450r and 3 250r barnett hd springs on med to big builds this has worked very well i have had
no tranys fail with this set up. i also ues dumonde tech oil lwhs in trans 15/40 in the engine side. i have seen more
problems in 06+ clutches than an 04 05 the clutchs will interchange.

This is worth a shot but man, it took me three times reading this paragraph to comprehend the conjunction of statements here!

what year cr500-spring do you use