All the kudos go to you Sneezy.  You came up with a solution to a long-standing problem, took the initiative to do something about it, and were kind enough to allow all of us to benefit from your effort.  You did the work, we get the goodies.

I'm almost at the 3500 mile oil change interval.  When I change oil I will be pulling the clutch cover to inspect the cam chain tensioner.  I will change the release cam at that time.  I will let you all know how that goes.

I installed the Sneezy cam at the 3500 mile oil change.  It was an easy installation.  Had to use the .008" shim between the shaft and the cam to tighten up the fit.  So it was essentially the same fit as the stock OEM cam.  

To achieve correct lever position, I ended up removing the .020" shim between the release bearing and push piece, and installing the longest OEM pushrod (46.5mm).  The lever ended up exactly centered between the two marks on the case.

Lever pull and clutch action remain unchanged.  It feels exactly the same as it was with the stock OEM release cam.

I inspected the stock OEM cam that I removed.  Under 5X magnification there are no visible defects.  I have no reason to suspect that the Sneezy Cam won't hold up just as well.  I currently have 667 miles on the Sneezy cam and it's smooth as silk.

The only issue I noted was the Sneezy cam sits a bit skewed on the shaft.  I don't see that as being much of a problem.  I'll gladly take the skew in exchange for twice the strength.  You can see the slight skew here.

Yes I do.  Send me an email and we can exchange details

Let’s look at squeal & grab first.

One thing I noted early on was every time I tore it apart for the squealy grabby stuff, I would find the thrust washers heavily worn and the basket spacer with bronze deposits.  It was clear that the basket was binding on the spacer.  The basket has a bronze bushing that runs on the spacer.  The spacer is pinched between the thrust washers, and it should turn with the input shaft, but it was evident that the spacer was turning on the input shaft (instead of with the input shaft) and wearing into the washers.  Essentially, the spacer was turning with the basket.

Look at the wear on this thrust washer.  Only thing that could cause that is relative motion between the spacer and thrust washer.

It seemed to me that Dave’s suggestion on the wave-washer had merit.  While I don’t pretend to understand everything there is to know about the wave-washer (it’s a mystery to me), I can see how the wave-washer could facilitate more uniform clutch engagement.  Problem is, the wave-washer separates the outermost plates.  To transmit torque, we want to pinch all the plates.  As such, the wave washer will most likely reduce the load that the clutch can handle.  It also requires a slight reduction in friction surface (about 2%) because the special outer fiber plate has less friction surface than all the other fiber plates.  Less friction surface will reduce load capability.

One thing in favor of the special the special outer fiber plate is its thickness.  It is slightly thicker than the other friction plates (.136” vs .115”).  That will increase the stack height, which will reduce the spring installed height and increase spring pre-load.

Thank goodness for the Sneezy cam.  With Sneezy’s heavy-duty release cam, additional spring force may not be an insurmountable problem.  I’m gambling that the Sneezy cam can handle the additional preload resulting from the thicker outer plate, and also handle any additional preload required to hold the power I am currently making.

At 120 lbs., I could still move the outermost plate (the one at the bottom of the picture), all the others locked up solid at about 10 lbs.

Time to gamble. The Sneezy cam was my ace in the hole.  If I used the wave-washer to resolve the grabby-squealy problem I would lose some pinching force, but the Sneezy cam might allow me to increase spring preload to compensate for the wave-washer, plus add a few more pounds to resolve the slipping issue.  There really was no other option.

I installed the wave-washer and special outer friction plate.  I used my Barnett plates along with one regular stock Suzuki plate.  The hope is that the Barnett material has a higher coefficient of friction.

To increase preload, I installed one thicker steel plate (ala old DR650 Model R/S part # 21451-05A00) along with Barnett springs.  The thicker outermost fiber plate along with the thicker DR steel plate reduced the spring installed height to 25mm.  Note: I had previously mentioned to some forum members that the installed height was 24mm, but I forgot that I had modified my release plate to relieve some of the preload.  The installed height ended up right about 25mm using the modified release plate along with the chop suey clutch pack.  The combination of the shorter spring height and stiffer springs might be enough to hold the power.

I checked the torque required to cycle the release arm.  It was now right at 150 inch-lbs at full release.  That correlates nicely with my spring data.  The Barnett springs exert 76 pounds of force at 23mm.  The installed height is 25mm and the full release height should be about 23mm.  Four springs at 76 lbs works out to 304 lbs force.  The release cam lever is 0.5” long so 150 inch-lbs yields 300 lbs force.  I think that’s pretty close.  Science, it works every time.

This graph provides some useful data on the spring characteristics.  If these Barnett springs can’t hold the load, I will be forced to resort to the early model DR springs (part # 09440-20013).  Those puppies coil bind at 22mm so it will be a squeaker.