clutch lever and plates

Hi everyone ! I have joined this forum only because I want to share all info I know about solving the problems I have had with my 2008 R model. Problems right from new that no dealership could understand nor solve.
Does your clutch grab and send you into an uncontrollable forward motion on pavement with the bike trying to wheelie? Is the lever actuation so weird a feeling that controlling the clutch plates as they begin to engage when the lever is so far away from the handlebar? I have ridden bikes for 41 years and never had such a scary, unnerving feeling about my clutch engagement as this one bike!! After talking to a Barnett Clutch tech guy he helped me see a solution. Yamaha put on a lever with a pull ratio very different from any other off-road bike. The distance from the lever pivot in the perch to where the cable end fits is 1.187 inch whereas most other bikes is 1.060 inch. This solved my lever feel and now the clutch engages at a point from the handlebar where I am used to with my MX race bike and my street ride. Now the clutch plate grabbyness was solved by getting rid of the carbon ceramic plates(which I am told will grab when the motor oil gets hot) and putting in old school cork friction plates. When installing the steel plates, put them in with the sharp edge facing out.

The parts I used were a perch from the 2008 WR250F #5TJ-82911-80-00. You will need all the related parts like barrel, adjuster nut. Get the universal rotater clamp from Zeta #40-9413 so you can mount mirrors(I use mirrors from Moto-Science in LA). You can still fit the lock-out switch in this perch. A Zeta Pivot lever #42-4165. EBC clutch plate kit.

My other mods are Factory Connection re-valve. These guys fixed my shock so it functions like a shock should. Corbin seat. IMS 11 liter tank. Tubliss system. Full FMF exhaust and the computor thing. This really woke the bike up with the airbox all hacked up too. A 45 tooth JT steel sprocket. I only use Pirelli MT 21 tires. Flatland skidplate and rad gaurd. Drill more holes in the bottom of skid to eliminate mechanical engine noise that bounce back up at you. Also I use AMSOIL, period. Thats it!! This bike was outstanding at MOAB this year.

Glad you got it figured. I also have a 2008 and the clutch is nice on mine. All stock parts but the engagement and lever feel are good for me.

I felt the clutch action, engagement point, feel, ect., were just fine and dandy on my 2008 WR-250R and 2008 WR-250X.
Seems odd to me that you felt the need to do that, but, it is your bike, :)

Yamaha motorcycles have come with that lever and lever perch for decades, by the way, starting back in 1982 with the XT-550J, which reminds me of this:

There was a point in time (late 1980s - mid 1990s) when Motocross Action magazine said that the hot setup for your YZ-125 or YZ-250 was to mount the "XT-550 clutch lever", as they called it, into the stock YZ lever perch.
They said it gave a better feel and they liked the shape of the lever better than the stock YZ clutch lever.
I thought that tip was a good one because I'd been doing that for several years before I read about it in the magazine.
In fact, on the two WR-250F models I've owned ( I just bought a 2002 WR-250F last week), I did the opposite that you did - I removed the stock lever and perch assembly (quick adjuster feature and all) and installed the old-fashioned XT-550 lever and perch, just like I used to do in the olden daze.