Lighter Clutch Feel?

The Tracer have a heavy clutch pull for my preference, since I am coming up from a smaller bike. It also do not allow Rider to adjust the clutch lever reach and commonly causing the Rider to compromise between a hard tension clutch pull or slack feel.

The Tracer’s OEM clutch cable is know to snap easily, to remedy this, a Yamaha R1 clutch cable had been swapped on this Tracer. The R1 clutch cable however is longer the Tracer’s and is slightly causing some slack on the hanger and assembly if you tune it to specification.

R1 vs Tracer clutch cable

Another view

R1 clutch cable part number

R1 cable without the route guide as on Tracer’s

Note the mounting due to the excessive length

About two threads left in order to keep the free play within specification

So here are the 3 challenges I will aim to solve:

Heavy Clutch Pull
Excessive Clutch Slack
Clutch Reach

I came across in FZ-09.org, where the clutch arm was cut and welded 8mm longer than stock. I chanced upon Yamaha XSV950 Bolt’s clutch arm to be 5mm longer and had placed an order for it. This will effectively lighten the clutch pull and takes away some cable slack off the clutch tension.

As for the clutch reach, I could not find a good and affordable lever that matches the stock lever’s feel. The Chinese CNC levers simply ruin the actuation and are clunky to grab. Others I compared seems thick to feel comfortable. The best/most promising levers for feel and adjustable reach so far seems to from Renthal’s Intellilever LV-507 @ $144.95, but they are out of stock

I wanted to cannibalise my KLE500’s clutch lever assembly over, since I am certain they can run Yamaha cable as I am using an R6’s clutch cable now, but the issue is the mirror mount position is off. After a few searches and comparison from different motorcycle and ATV makers, I narrowed down to Triumph’s and Kawasaki’s clutch assembly which offers adjustable reach.

The clutch assembly should be as close to the Tracer’s current assembly in the mirror position mount and clutch switch, as I do wish to use back the Tracer knuckle guards. The Triumph’s uses a circular clutch switch though the lever itself resembles a mirror image of the Tracer’s brake lever whereas the Versys’s are an updated version of the KLE500 with a beefed up lever.