Clutch or Wheelspin?

[RealNinja]

I am under the impression that my clutch is slipping, and needs the plates replacing, but I was wondering how I would be able to tell the difference between the clutch slip and rear tyre spin....?

My symptoms are......

Revs rising at peak power, but no acceleration. Clutchless up-changes don't make any difference. The no acceleration only happens for about 2 thousand revs and then they drop down again and my bike launches foward.

As I say, this only happens at peak power (around 11.5k revs) and is only really noticable on the track, when I am nailing the bike out of a corner and change up.

The reason why I have begin to doubt the fact that it could be my clutch is that I have recently noticed my rear tyre is very near to the spacers. It's a 208RR, which I haven't used before, but I have only had the bike on the road since April, and so far only done 1 trackday on it. Tyres were new on in April.

What seems unusual is that I used to get a full 'season' (April to about September) out of my 207RR's?

The only other thing that I have changed is my chain, which is now a super heavy duty X ring item.

Is it possible that the tyre is spinning up, rather than the clutch slipping?

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to get as much detail in as poss.
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[feef]

[loply]

An observer should be able to tell you?

From my very limited experience wheelspin is usually quite obvious because you "feel" it in the backend, it steps out slightly or weaves around a bit.

Perhaps you should try adjusting the clutch to give it a bit more bite? if you have the bite point near the end of the lever travel it can sometimes prevent the clutch from completely engaging.
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[Davo]

Wheelspin would usually get a bit of smoke of the tyres, so may be obvious to an observer.

[proximity]

Yeah if it was a wheelspin you would know it.

You said the revs drop back down again so maybe it just needs adjusting, so it is kind of slipping a bit then gripping.
On my old bike it did this and adjusting the lever didnt help, i took the clutch apart and there was a bolt in the middle which can be adjusted, i think it alters the movement of the plates but anyway it fixed it.
Make sure you have a little slack on your lever.
Possibly the springs are knacked and not pushing the plates together strong enough, how does the lever feel, is it strong?
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2004 Aprilia Tuono

[Flip]

My experience of wheelspins consist of:

A. The bike fish tailing.

and

B. My arse opening and closing very very quickly.

You'd shit one if it was a wheelspin. So my vote is clutch slip.

[mistergixer]

Like flip says, check the inside of your leathers:
If they are ful of liquid shit, it's wheelspin.
If they are dry, it's the clutch.
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[Johnny GSX-R]

Well i have 140+ bhp at the rear wheel and never get wheelspin in the dry so unless your riding a supercharged ZX12R on hard touring tyres i would suspect its clutch slip. Also if it spins up you'll probably end up on your ear wondering what the fook happened.

[Suzuki]

Identical symptoms to my bike back in January.

It's the clutch.
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[Milo]

I had this on my old XJ900 it was definitely the clutch but it did sound pretty cool when gunning it.
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[armysurplus]

i would say the symptoms are clutch slip

if you were spinning the wheel up you would know about it, and the edges of your tyre would be smooth and probably blue!