Idle speed?

[Moogus]

The last two days have been out on the GTR, with Mrs Moogus, and have noticed the bike really thunks into 1st gear. Its idling at 1100 rpm, which i believe is slap bang in the middle of the preferred range.

Looking to delve into your vast experience of the GTR...is 1100 rpm good?, are GTR gearboxes generally clunky? and will a lower idle reduce the 1st gear selection clunk?

I've also noticed its a bugger to roll the throttle on smoothly. May have to investigate a remap ...maybe 

[Tynesidebob]

How many miles on the clock?

[Boomer]

All Kawasaki gearboxes have a heavy clunk when going from neutral to first with cold oil. Totally normal. Once the oil has warmed up the clunk should disappear.

[O.C.]

What George said, personally I prefer tick over set at 1150 - 1200 rpm 

[Moogus]

Mileage is 31680, fresh oil and filter. It clunk's into 1st whether cold or hot.

[nobody]

.

[Moogus]

I'll try that Daisy, thanks.

Do you do that every time you select 1st or only when the engine is cold?

Found a race bike engineer, Kawasaki specialist, who can remap my bike next week....and he's only 4 miles away!....Happy days 😀

[Tynesidebob]

By 30k Kawasakis often need a clutch overhaul.
The clutch plate fingers wear indentations in the clutch basket fingers so when you compress the springs but the plates don't separate properly due to being trapped in the grooves in the basket fingers.
It is an easy job to pull the clutch cover off and remove the plates and file the basket roughly smooth again.
EBC clutch plates have fingers which are twice as thick as standard so they wear the basket less and don't fit into the groves left by the original plates - smoother changes.

[Moogus]

Thanks for that Bob. I'll have a look into the clutch plates.
Will I need any specialist tools?

[Tynesidebob]

A small file, a new gasket, a large flat blade screwdriver/scraper to remove the old gasket, some thread lock and a small torque wrench for putting it all back together.

[Moogus]

Thanks Bob, I'll have a gander at the workshop manual download (assuming the gen 2 is the same process as in the gen 1 manual)

[nobody]

.

[Moogus]

Wow 200k!
That's made me feel a bit better. Perhaps I'll persevere this summer and look into it over the winter...along with the engine tap it's developed 

I deployed your method yesterday whilst putting the bike back in the garage from cold, it did feel/sound less clunky.

[Moogus]

Having looked into/read more about this, I'm thinking this maybe isn't the clutch needing a fiddle with.

I've had the bike out on a couple of rides lately. When warm, the idle is around 1200. The clutch, apart from the 1st gear clunk, operates as it should. Its suggested a clunk cure is to swap the oil for fully synthetic 15/50 and set the idle at 1050.

Has anyone done this on 2nd gen models and noticed a difference?

It also appears that the clunk is perfectly normal on all Kawasaki's ....apparently 

[O.C.]

Every Kawasaki I have owned (there have been plenty) feature the 'clunk' into first gear