By Rca on Monday, December 09, 2002 - 09:59 am:

Took RSV for ride today, first ride since fitting new clutch. Original clutch lasted 14,500 miles (It started to slip at about 9,500 miles). The barnett clutch is different construction to the Aprilia one. For a start, most of the frictions have individidual carbon tabs glued on as the friction material. I say most as two of the frictions are kevlar. The instructions say: "the different friction(s) should be placed at the end(s) of the stack, first in last out". That phrase seems to contradict itself. It could mean that one goes at each end or they both go at the same end. I decided to try the former which would be first in last out for one of them and last in first out for the other. Two of the steels were also a different thickness to all the others, I put these on the ends of the stack (again first in last out for one of them and last in first out for the other). The springs are a little stiffer than the originals, but not so much that you can feel much difference at the lever. I found Kens clutch fitting instructions invaluable. The only point I would emphasise is to remember the last friction should be rotated 15 degrees (I missed this the first time I fitted it, only spotted when reviewing kens instructions after fitting new stack). For the first 15 miles I was careful not to use more than 2/3 throttle. After that full throttle resulted in no slippage (even though I'm still using 15/50 oil which many seem to think causes slippage). One more thing, I found a US supplier of this clutch is advising that a new pressure plate (part No. 0259517) is required to fit this clutch if you have engine number 689953 or lower, no such notice is supplied with the clutch. My 2000 RSV was a few hundred higher than that value. I now have a total of just 70 miles on this new clutch will keep you all advised on how it lasts over the next few thousand miles.