How I smoothed the clunky shifting on My AE

JeffAshe said:

I have set my idle at 1,200 on my 05-A to help with the jerky throttle. It causes me to down shift one more gear in some downhill, tight and twisty turns, but the idle speed increase helps to smooth low end response on the A version.

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Fastmax said:

I took delivery on my AE a few weeks ago and found the shifting to be downright annoying at lower speeds. Clunk, Jerk, Clunk. I couldnt get it to be smooth at all and I pride myself on how smooth I am as a rider. I performed the Barbarian mod and removed the center spring, it helped but didnt fix it. I blamed it on the quick throttle response at low RPM and planned on a PC.Then I noticed how some folks on here complained about the shifting and some didnt. I noticed how mine was clunky even if I shifted it and didnt touch the throttle. My idle was set at about 950 RPM from the dealer. I raised it up to about 1100. What a difference that made, my bike likes it much better! At that RPM the cogs in the tranny shift much more smoothly when I hit the button. No more big Clunk. Also Because the engine no longer dove to such a low RPM, there was no jerking when I got back on the gas. It was a huge improvement. The bike also comes on the gas more smoothly from the higher RPM improving takeoff. Now shifting is clickety click smooth running around town.

It may be that some of the folks on here that are having clunking problems have the same low set idle that I did and may be able to fix it just as easily.

You dont even have to remove anything to adjust it. Heres a link to warchilds site and the location of the adjustment. https://www.fjrtech.com/getdbitem.cfm?item=28

I hope it works out as good for you guys as it did for me.

Roy

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pilotonboard said:

Fastmax said:

I took delivery on my AE a few weeks ago and found the shifting to be downright annoying at lower speeds. Clunk, Jerk, Clunk. I couldnt get it to be smooth at all and I pride myself on how smooth I am as a rider. I performed the Barbarian mod and removed the center spring, it helped but didnt fix it. I blamed it on the quick throttle response at low RPM and planned on a PC.

Then I noticed how some folks on here complained about the shifting and some didnt. I noticed how mine was clunky even if I shifted it and didnt touch the throttle. My idle was set at about 950 RPM from the dealer. I raised it up to about 1100. What a difference that made, my bike likes it much better! At that RPM the cogs in the tranny shift much more smoothly when I hit the button. No more big Clunk. Also Because the engine no longer dove to such a low RPM, there was no jerking when I got back on the gas. It was a huge improvement. The bike also comes on the gas more smoothly from the higher RPM improving takeoff. Now shifting is clickety click smooth running around town.

It may be that some of the folks on here that are having clunking problems have the same low set idle that I did and may be able to fix it just as easily.

You dont even have to remove anything to adjust it. Heres a link to warchilds site and the location of the adjustment. https://www.fjrtech.com/getdbitem.cfm?item=28

I hope it works out as good for you guys as it did for me.

Roy

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pilotonboard said:

there is one more thing---even though the owner's manual says you should roll off the throttle for each shift I have found there is an extremely smooth sweet spot to be found if you just unload a few rpms rather than go all the way to full off each time. If this is wrong advice I have to say that the machine would probably tell me that I was doing something bad. On the contrary, the shifting is so seamless and the transmission does not protest--I intend to keep doing this.

Click to expand...

Fastmax said:

I took delivery on my AE a few weeks ago and found the shifting to be downright annoying at lower speeds. Clunk, Jerk, Clunk. I couldnt get it to be smooth at all and I pride myself on how smooth I am as a rider. I performed the Barbarian mod and removed the center spring, it helped but didnt fix it. I blamed it on the quick throttle response at low RPM and planned on a PC.Then I noticed how some folks on here complained about the shifting and some didnt. I noticed how mine was clunky even if I shifted it and didnt touch the throttle. My idle was set at about 950 RPM from the dealer. I raised it up to about 1100. What a difference that made, my bike likes it much better! At that RPM the cogs in the tranny shift much more smoothly when I hit the button. No more big Clunk. Also Because the engine no longer dove to such a low RPM, there was no jerking when I got back on the gas. It was a huge improvement. The bike also comes on the gas more smoothly from the higher RPM improving takeoff. Now shifting is clickety click smooth running around town.

It may be that some of the folks on here that are having clunking problems have the same low set idle that I did and may be able to fix it just as easily.

You dont even have to remove anything to adjust it. Heres a link to warchilds site and the location of the adjustment. https://www.fjrtech.com/getdbitem.cfm?item=28

I hope it works out as good for you guys as it did for me.

Roy

Click to expand...

tripletango said:

pilotonboard said:

there is one more thing---even though the owner's manual says you should roll off the throttle for each shift I have found there is an extremely smooth sweet spot to be found if you just unload a few rpms rather than go all the way to full off each time. If this is wrong advice I have to say that the machine would probably tell me that I was doing something bad. On the contrary, the shifting is so seamless and the transmission does not protest--I intend to keep doing this.

Click to expand...

You are right. A blip of the throttle as you down shift helps too.

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