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Clutch experts only, Im tired of swapping pedal assemblies

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kchaazz

20+ Year Contributor
1,168
78
Oct 2, 2002
PENSACOLA, Florida
Ive been using the ACT 2600 clutch with a street disc for roughly a dozen years now and I believe its time to end this relationship. Sure, it holds up nicely for what Im doing with my car, but the gorilla pressure plate is destroying pedal assemblies and I am fed up with going through the hell that is swapping the pedals out. Regarding the pedal assembly, Ive tried every availible fix and Ive done this a million friggin times as the thing fails repeatedly:

1. Welding the old crap- lasted a couple months then it twisted

2. Rebuilt with new parts- lasted a good while and then died

3. Rebuilt with new parts, including bronze bushings and then welded by a reputable company that knows how to do this right- This assembly has only lasted maybe a year and its already twisted to the point that the clutch pedal is roughly .5" lower than the brake pedal, the engagement window is noticeably lower and the only way to bring it up is to weld a nut to the bracket and adjust the rod out to the point that I get pedal pump up.

Basically, I want a clutch other than a twin disc that will hold up to 500whp with a lighter pedal to avoid killing my damn assembly. Either this or Im going to attempt to fab a direct link master cylinder or go auto because my back is being a piece of #### these days and its extremely painful for me to work on this thing....



[ame="http://youtu.be/UfHmdGph1A8"]http://youtu.be/UfHmdGph1A8[/ame]
 
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Is this what youre using now? Im thinking about South Bend, cause I think theyve moved the fulcrum points around on their pressure plates to alleviate a lot of the pedal pressure, but the only guy who sells em I could ask is in Australia at the moment. Im sending another pedal assembly out today to get redone and theyre going to take my other one in and let me know what caused the premature failure.
 
SBC SSX pressure plate with TZ-Series Kevlar disk. Simple, smooth engaging, can handle your torque capacity and great daily driver clutch. If you are intending on track racing it, I would do the TZ/B Kevlar/Ceramic disk then.
 
If you go with a South Bend setup you will not be disappointed. Great customer service and an even better product.
 
SBC SSX pressure plate with TZ-Series Kevlar disk. Simple, smooth engaging, can handle your torque capacity and great daily driver clutch. If you are intending on track racing it, I would do the TZ/B Kevlar/Ceramic disk then.

Just the guy I wanted to see, though I didnt want to bug ya since youre away and all. Yeah, I do intend to do some road course and 1/8 1/4 runs. Im just sick of the pedal assemblies failing on me, so I need something that relies more on disk material to hold, rather than a gorilla pressure plate! Hell, my not quite year old master and slave (OE of course) turn my fluid black within a few months and I keep flushing it out with fresh fluid to no avail. Guess thats another 150.00 to spendROFL
 
Xtd stage 4 unsprung disc

That won't hold it very well. Mine slipped right 500whp. The PP actually has less clamp load than a factory mitsubishi PP.


If it were me, I'd try oem mitsubshi pp, and a XTD sprung 6 puck. I have had great luck with the XTD discs, and PP's but the PP's seem to have super high pedal effort for not much clamp load. Also the release travel of them is not very high.


That kevlar stuff seems to have a lower CoF than most organics, and looses more with heat, but it recovers better from heat than organic.

I'm in a similar boat, only I need to hold 700hp and almost hot lapping conditions, launching on slicks. I had a QM, and hated it. Looks like it's going to be an ACT2900 XTD and 6puck. If SBC could guarantee the clutch to work for me without issue, I'd try it.
 
Just so I'm clear, you say this because ACT, CC, Exedy, QM, etc. do?

No. So far all I've run has been XTD ACT OEM and QM. The XTD has honestly been the least trouble (none). They Just won't hold over 550whp for me.

The QM was reliable, but sucked at the track for me.

The ACT 2600 /act 4puck in the car now has held the power, but not been reliable. It spit the friction surfaces off the pucks after 500mi and one track trip. It also has problems where the fingers move out at High RPM from centrifugal force, and cause high rpm shifting problems.

The SBC products I hear lots and lots of horror stories about them, but I do hear lots of good things too. I'm just getting tired of spending good money on good parts and having china junk work better.
 
I'm just getting tired of spending good money on good parts and having china junk work better.

Now, THAT, I can understand. And who would blame you?
So far all I've run has been OEM, SPEC, Competition Clutch and SBC.

I would be one of those few who have had some sort of "horror story" with SBC products, and I'll continue paying those dues until I get a rebuild for my transmission.
Now, having that said, I've never been in a bigger hurry to do it all over again. :thumb:

I know that no one has time for mistakes or the like, but I also know that you're personally capable of swapping out your clutch in the blink of an eye ;)

I guess I would just encourage you to give them a try at some point, else you'd have tried everyone but them!
 
Well, shite!! Ive only ever used the ACT 2600 and street disc. My only gripe is that I go through pedal assemblies over and over again. I WISH the clutch would be taking a crap cause Id rather remove and replace the transmission than do that clutch pedal assembly one more time. Plus, Im getting a new turbo setup and Im hoping to see 400whp once I get the tune dialed in. Im not huge into the drag strip, but I do go sometimes and I like to beat on the old bi***, so I need something thatll hold up but mainly I just want to get away from the heavy pedal. Was that a sprung or unsprung disk that lost the friction surfaces??
 
Go with a sprung disk if your going to be doing any street driving as I have tryed the unsprung and its a little touchy on the street and its not all that good for the input shaft splines but I do have to say it shifts nice. The south bend PP uses a stock like engaugement point that is diffrent from other aftermarket clutches and its not as harsh on the components even with the 2700 SSX plate.
 
Ahh. Most of the sprung six pucks Ive seen have lost a friction surface or two, guess the unsprung disks arent immune either. Id like to try the South Bend stuff cause they seem to be fairly decent and supposedly have made some changes to the engagement points and pedal pressure required to work the PPs. Im actually surprised at how many people have used XTD stuff, with success too it seems
 
Ive had no problems with the act 2600 and sprung 6 puck even on my 132 mph pass, i hated the solid 6 puck on the street and the chatter was terrable. I plan to go sbc next but ive been on the same pressure plate and streetlite flywheel for 13k miles with no problems. Maybe something else is going on? Clutch drag?
 
Well, our cars go through clutches, and of the brands out there currently, most people have a horror story about one or more brands. I have owned Exedy, Clutchnet, ACT, RPS, Fidanza, Competition Clutch, Centerforce, Clutch Masters, South Bend Clutch, and Quarter Master in my own car over the years. The ones that lasted the longest were my SBC SS w/ TZ disk, SBC SSX w/ TZ/B disk, ACT2600 PP w/ SBC TZ disk and my Quarter Master Gear Drive twin disk assembly. I have fragged numerous ACT pressure plates, fragged Clutchnet and RPS disks, and beat the hell out of every clutch I have owned. I have personally ran the TZ, OFE, TZ/FE, TZ/B and B-series clutch disks from SBC in my cars between my 1G Talon, my GVR4 and my 2G Eclipse. When I started getting above 500AWHP, the ones that lasted were the ACT2600 w/ SBC TZ disk, SBC SSX w/ TZ/B disk for primarily street use. The time I had on slicks before going to a twin was best with the SBC SSX pressure plate and B-Series Ceramic disk and an ACT Streetlite flywheel.

That being said, I have been dealing with SBC regarding modification of the clutch assembly to give a slightly larger disengagement window while minimizing the loss of torque capacity and keeping a pivot angle similar to the current product which allows very soft pedal feel. The adjustment will be done to MY clutches sold on the SS and SS-X pressure plates. If the pressure plate works out and we don't have to modify the clutch hub, marcel or friction material thickness, then we can focus on making more clutch options with different friction materials or maybe doing a twin. These measures are being taken because our cars are very finicky when it comes to clutch hydraulics, poor pedal assemblies and plenty of horror stories of over-adjustment of clutches or air in the clutch hydraulic system causing adjustment and bleeding issues resulting in disengagement issues. I am trying to give a higher disengagement window with the pedal assembly while doing as little as possible to the clutch clamp load to minimize loss of torque capacity and not giving my customers a Gorilla leg clutch that is completely unusable for normal people.

I try and tailor the clutch purchase specifically to each person's application, power levels currently and power goals, driving style, vehicle weight, tire types, racing usage, cool down durations, and supporting modifications to the vehicle. You can always PM me and we can discuss other options including other brands, but the following clutches should suit your needs just fine.

If you intend on doing a lot of track driving or extended launches without proper cool down time, or running on slicks; then I would strongly recommend doing the full-face sprung-hub segmented Ceramic (B-Series) clutch disk with the SBC SS-X pressure plate. This one has the Exedy Racing hub (Isolator bushings and springs), and runs a curved marcel with 8 Ceramic pads on each side of the disk in a full face disk frame.

If you intend on doing primarily street driving with some track time and letting cool down between passes and are on street tires, then I would do the TZ/B Kevlar/Ceramic dual friction full-face sprung-hub clutch disk with a media blasted SS-X pressure plate.

All of my clutch assemblies are media blasted if they are using Kevlar friction material against the flywheel. If you are going with a full TZ-Series Kevlar disk, I recommend using a 80/120-grit Aluminum Oxide blast media and media blasting the flywheel.

I also recommend a 0.612"-0.614" step height on the flywheel with a minimum step of 0.608". The flywheel must be machined perfectly FLAT; if it is warped or high/low spots, a Kevlar friction material is especially susceptible to slipping/glazing issues, and any clutch disk will have a higher likelihood of disengagement issues.

The SBC TOB is a nice piece (Nachi brand bearing is China, but not many failures from them), but I still prefer to run an OEM Mitsubishi TOB with any clutch I put in. Also, use new pressure plate bolts, clutch fork, TOB clip and clutch fork pivot ball. As for clutch hydraulics, ALWAYS use OEM Mitsubishi clutch master cylinder, and slave cylinders and a braided stainless -4AN line from master to slave. Always use new high quality brake fluid; an old opened container is unacceptable for a DSM; give it to a Honda owner. Brake fluid is extremely hydroscopic (absorbs water/moisture and degrades the hydraulic fluid compression pressure and temperature range). Use quality fluid like Valvoline synthetic DOT 3/4 brake fluid, Motul 600, ATE Super Blue, and stay away from Wilwood 580 or cheapo brand fluids. The Wilwood 580 is probably the worst performance fluid I have had experience with for moisture absorption as well as temperature inconsistency with brakes and clutch. It needed to be flushed after every big race day, and every couple months of street usage to stay consistent. I have been running ATE Super Blue the last 3 years and have been very happy with it. No problems at all; I flush the system once a season for precaution, and I have an integrated clutch/brake master reservoir that both systems feed from.
 
Sounds good, sir. I will get with ya on a clutch when you return to the US. Shoot me a deal on an ACT Streetlite too, if you have em:hellyeah:. Now, after using an ACT 2600 for 12 years or so, if these plates have a much lighter pedal, lets hope I dont shove my foot straight through the floorboard when Im shiftingLOL
 
I have run into a problem with trying to have the flywheel machined perfectly flat as flywheels grinders wont get a perfectly flat surface. I have been to like 5 shops and they all say they cant make it any flatter and I then called RRE and they said the only way to get it perfectly flat is have it cut on a lathe like a brake rotor. Problem is you dont want to cut a flywheel on a lathe due to the hot spots on the flywheel as it will cause the cutter to bounce over them. So im going to try it out and should not have a problem.. Well my flywheel is out of being perfect by like .002 and some change. Its ..612 at the step and .6148 twards the center. Im using a ACT street light flywheel and a SBC SSX plate with the B series sprung ceramic disk from TMZ. I did some measurements between the SSX plate I got from Tim and my old comp plate and there was a notable diffrence in how the plate is made as it should allow for quicker clutch disengugement. I also like the spring/isolator design of the sprung center over other clutch disks that are out there.
 
Get that thing in there and tell us about the feel of it!!:thumb:

Update I got the clutch in and very happy with how it all went together. I ended up having to pull it back out to remove the washer from under the pivit ball to get the fork in the window were I wanted it. This is the first clutch ever that I had no shim under the pivit ball and the fork is still very slighty twards the drivers side!
Petal pressure is almost like stock way less than the comp plate I had in there before. This is even with the SSX plate!
 
Ive had several clutch problems never used a shim to me that has always been a band aid according t other dsmers ive spoken too glad you figured i out. Looking to get a south bend clutch when I upgrade my drivetrain.
 
How's the feel of the engagement window with that ssx plate? Did you have plenty of adjustment rod left as well? Im pretty much sold at this point cause if the pedal pressure is stocklike itll never kill my pedal assembly again...
 
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