My son races in the 50cc class of the WEBE Hare Scramble series and loves it. He rides a little KTM which has been a great bike except for one thing, the clutch. KTM builds a great bike but the stock clutch is horrible. It overheats and boils over if he is doing slow speed drills, trail riding, or anything where there isn't massive air flowing by the engine. It takes a long time for it to hook up coming out of corners and the longer he rides the worse it gets. Numerous adjustments and different coolants and oils never really made much of a difference. The clutch was the Achilles Heal of the KTM but I did find a solution.
The solution turned out to be an aftermarket clutch made by IRP. The clutch is smaller in diameter, one pound lighter, and uses a completely different (and way more effective) system to engage. All of this adds up to a clutch that works incredibly well and allows the crankcase to hold an additional 80 cc's of oil.
After testing it this weekend by having my son do everything that would have overheated his previous clutch, ie..slow speed drills, hard cornering, and even technical trail riding the IRP performed flawlessly. No overheating, no fading, and according to my son, it needed much less throttle in order to engage coming out of corners.
If you have a mini KTM and are as frustrated as I was, it might be worth your while to look into replacing that clutch. I'm sure you can get them directly from IRP, however, I went through Mike who distributes for IRP. I highly recommend him as he has a junior racer himself so he has been through the same things as the rest of us Mini Dads. Mike has a wealth of information on this clutch and KTM Minis in general. Give him a call, he is always more than eager to share his knowledge and get you the clutch you need.
Mike- 760-802-7374 or email him at krmx_ind@live.com
Update: After writing this article the clutch had a major malfunction and basically disintegrated. I was going to remove this article completely but decided to update it instead because I do still believe in the product.
For some unknown reason all the abrasive material on the clutch plates wore off rendering the clutch useless.
I honestly do not know if it was operator error or a manufacturing defect. However, one call to one of the Techs at IRP was all it took to resolve the issue. I sent in the defective clutch and a new one was sent back to me with some suggestions on what oil to use. Apparently different oils have different boiling points and IRP recommended a turbine oil called Aeroshell 500. This particular oil has a boiling point of 500 degrees where a normal ATF will boil off at 300. Big difference.
The stop and go of technical trail riding may have also contributed to the demise of the original clutch so this bike is strictly used for racing now. The clutch has now been through a half dozen races and numerous practice sessions and is still going strong.
Rob Swan
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