Did your ACT clutch fail on you? If so, post here

[talontsiawd]

Mine has given me no problems for 2 years, installed by dss, no issues what so ever. I think most clutch problems are due to improper installation or driving habits that would destroy any clutch.

 

[laserspeeddemon]

Mine has given me no problems for 2 years, installed by dss, no issues what so ever. I think most clutch problems are due to improper installation or driving habits that would destroy any clutch.

ACT's durability and effectiveness is race proven, so unless you're making insane amounts of power I wouldn't bet on driving habits. Again, I must stress the importance of the two dowel pins/sleeves. After my first melt-down of my previous ACT clutch I found that both of mine were, infact, missing. I replaced them and my clutch with another ACT unit and a Streetlite flywheel. 5000 miles and no problems as of yet. I even took my talon on the Nurburgring and put a punishment down on the car.

 

[talontsiawd]

Yeah, but you get the guys who launch their car accouple times a day thinking it should last for ever, say "i haven't even raced it". I know someone who burt up his ACT (don't know which pressure plate) clutic in a N/A honda from driving like a moron all day everyday. I have only heard good thing about ACT until i have read this post.

 

[MSRmechanic]

well guys, its official. my act street disk is done.

i went to drive it today, and it wouldnt go into any gears, this blows. This is also the second time that this has happened to me. this time the clutch lasted 5000 miles before it happened. made all the noises the last one made too. lets just hope my bellhousing is still ok.

i think im going with a stock disk and 2100lb pressure plate. the plate should be in ok condition, if not i have the one from last time this happened and its fine.

it happened about 2 hours ago and in that amount of time i have the hood off and all the stuff on the top of the tranny/motor taken off, i gotta get the t-case off, the axels out, and i should be good to go.

hopefully i can get this done soon as the gsx is my DD. it sucks bowrrowing my mommys tahoe . at least its reliable

well i will post some pics of my progress as it happens, and i will definetly post a pic of the damage when i get it all apart. wish me luck .

-scott

 

[Meh987]

My street disk destroyed itself a couple days ago on my GST.

I looked to see if the dowel pins were there, and there were none.

Here's what mine looks like:

 

[laserspeeddemon]

My street disk destroyed itself a couple days ago on my GST.

I looked to see if the dowel pins were there, and there were none.

Here's what mine looks like:

Good Lord, who did your install.

 

[my95tsi]

Could we finally close this thread? It's the dowel pins not Act, PERIOD

 

[Turbo Monk3y]

ummmm DId you guys forget that Maybe your Step height is also not correct.... If your flywheel is not the right step height, your street disk has to travel farther to contact and wears alot quicker.... Just a thought.... i still have my act 2600 on my car and when i put it on a year ago i knew nothing about how to change a clutch and mynes lasted a year and still is in great shape..... even though i blew out 1st gear on a 1st-2nd gear shift while racing.. but tahts the 140K beating on my tranny too... a whole other story...

 

[Fattie92]

Could we finally close this thread? It's the dowel pins not Act, PERIOD

if its the dowel pins "PERIOD" ... then why did mine break a spring? Both dowel pins are there. AND it was stepped at .610 ....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

makes ya scratch your head....

 

[Fattie92]

here is mine... broke the spring. All dowel pins are in, and all bolts are in. i used the proper alignment tool, torqed everything correctly... There is no way it was installer error.

 

[laserspeeddemon]

here is mine... broke the spring. All dowel pins are in, and all bolts are in. i used the proper alignment tool, torqed everything correctly... There is no way it was installer error.

Then spring broke because the hub had to much stress, which squished the spring and at 7000 RPMS things with pressure seem to break. You luck you caught it so early. It was technically a install error, but you could always call ACT they might hook you up with a deal.

 

[Fattie92]

Then spring broke because the hub had to much stress, which squished the spring and at 7000 RPMS things with pressure seem to break. You luck you caught it so early. It was technically a install error, but you could always call ACT they might hook you up with a deal.

How is it technically an install error?

screw ACT... never buying another one again.

 

[laserspeeddemon]

How is it technically an install error?

screw ACT... never buying another one again.

Because I had the samething happen to me, I have tested their theory with both a FWD and an AWD car, the only one that failed was the AWD when it DID NOT have the pins in.

ANd even with the pins in do you relize that out Engine and Tranny is hold together with only 4 BOLTS!!!! No other manfacture has a design as fragile as that, those 2 pins are the only thing that keep in somewhat aligned. So anyway you look at it, ACT is not at fault.

They only safe thing would be for ACT to stop selling clutches to the DSM community. But then they would lose alot of money. On top of that other clutch manfactures might back out as well. So all you can do it take it with a grain a salt and move on.

 

[herostar]

Could we finally close this thread? It's the dowel pins not Act, PERIOD

My dowel pins were both there and in place aligned correctly and everything. Mine still broke, as did my pressure plate, as did my bellhousing. Explain that to me since you obviously know everything...

 

[na90dsm]

tru but couldnt you just use a different manufacture's street disc, or another disc for that matter.

 

[Fattie92]

Because I had the samething happen to me, I have tested their theory with both a FWD and an AWD car, the only one that failed was the AWD when it DID NOT have the pins in.

ANd even with the pins in do you relize that out Engine and Tranny is hold together with only 4 BOLTS!!!! No other manfacture has a design as fragile as that, those 2 pins are the only thing that keep in somewhat aligned. So anyway you look at it, ACT is not at fault.

They only safe thing would be for ACT to stop selling clutches to the DSM community. But then they would lose alot of money. On top of that other clutch manfactures might back out as well. So all you can do it take it with a grain a salt and move on.

Well im not buying it that its installer error, especialy when the installer knows what they are doing. And i am definatly not gonna buy that just cause the trans is held by 4 bolts and 2 pins is the cause of it either. I guess tryin to play the "blame game" is usless... There are way to many variables involved to point a finger...

But, anyway no matter how i look at it, it broke. Plane and simple. Maybe there is something that i forgot to do, or maybe ACT had a bad batch of springs, rivits, or whatever...... The thing is, is that it happend. And I personaly, will never buy another one again becuase of it. Im not really saying its a bad clutch (i loved the thing when it worked!!), im just saying that i had a bad experiance that drove me away to other companies.

 

[MNGSX]

Mcleod makes a good organic disk...


Personally I think a portion of it is abuse...

Breaking the hub of the disk and/or springs can only mean too much shock... A clutch dumped too hard.

Although I think maybe a new batch of ACT disks were weaker because I have'nt seen it quite like this before.

I never had a problem with an ACT. I never launched at very high RPM either.. nor ecessively hard. I know its kind of a worn out example but look at shep at launch from outside and inside his car (vids up on his site)... Look at his ET's and ask him how many act springs he has had break!. I have seen so many DSM'ers with 1/2 the power dump the clutch twice as hard or from a much higher launch RPM. Simply put beating it harder wont make you faster.


One place mitsubishi goofed in addition to the bell housing was the lack of a pilot bearing between the input shaft and the crank.

The nose of the input shaft rides inside a bearing inside the crankshaft keeping them inline. I'm convinced that adding a pilot bearing to the transmission will increase transmission and clutch longevity... The engineers at Mcleod told me to fabricate my own in order to have the best clutch and trans life in these cars (high hp AWD).


Another area I have had great success with is an SSG flywheel... The aluminum dissipates heat better and it seems to be the toughest aluminum flywheel available.

The last thing I am considering is promoting airflow thru the bellhousing... This will help too... Less heat = less kitty hair. Maybe a louvered sheild (by the pan), maybe even feed it with a duct? Right now ? There has to be simple solution.

 

[90tsi]

In 4 years I never had a problem with my 2600 until I went from 3rd to 2nd in the 1/4 mile....but that's my fault

 

[herostar]

Personally I think a portion of it is abuse...

Breaking the hub of the disk and/or springs can only mean too much shock... A clutch dumped too hard.

Although I think maybe a new batch of ACT disks were weaker because I have'nt seen it quite like this before.

This could be true for many cases, but mine broke with 247 miles on it... It was on a brand new engine, and I hadn't even gotten the RPM's high enough to spool my turbo. I was still breaking the damn thing in. Because of the clutch it took me 3 months to break my engine in

 

[IMMORTALSPYDER]

No matter the cause of the problem, ACT is going to lose alot of business because of the way they handled the situation. By saying it is impossible to be a clutch problem and it's only possibe to be install error, and not backing their products no matter the cause they've lost alot of potential buyers. Who's gonna want to buy from somebody that won't guarentee and back their products. Especially since there was so many occurences in the same time period they should have at least investigated the problem. :thumbdown to ACT for customer Service. That's why I bought my Exedy, and now slowboy offers clutches so I'll problaby buy theirs next. Slowboy's don't have the heavy pedal and they don't even have to be broke in

 

[herostar]

On a side note, my disk, throw out bearing, and pressure plate were replaced by ACT. The bellhousing wasn't though, and that cost a shit load to buy a new one and have it re-installed on the transmission.

 

[Fattie92]

No matter the cause of the problem, ACT is going to lose alot of business because of the way they handled the situation. By saying it is impossible to be a clutch problem and it's only possibe to be install error, and not backing their products no matter the cause they've lost alot of potential buyers. Who's gonna want to buy from somebody that won't guarentee and back their products. Especially since there was so many occurences in the same time period they should have at least investigated the problem. :thumbdown to ACT for customer Service. That's why I bought my Exedy, and now slowboy offers clutches so I'll problaby buy theirs next. Slowboy's don't have the heavy pedal and they don't even have to be broke in

You know Exedy makes ACT stuff right?

 

[GSXTBOY]

Well after about 6 months of diagnosing whats the problem, I think my PP is junk.

In august I was driving to a Mitsu cookout in MN and right when I got off the freeway the clutch lost about 2" of pedal height and I barely made it home after that.

So I parked the car and took the tranny out, replaced the fork, ball and shimmed it, new TOB. New master and slave Cylinders. And I even took out the pedal assembly and had the rod welded and everything was like brand new. EXCEPT for my 2600 PP and street disk. They both looked to be in good condtion. They have about 25k of reliable miles on them. My clutch always engaged low off the floor but after I put it all back together I put it in storage because I needed garage space- Snow was coming (November).

So I barely made it to storage because the pedal engaged about a mm off the floor.

I will try beeding the system all out again, as I only did a small bleed to get the air out. Pedal felt nice and hard but engaged way to far to the floor. If the bleeding doesnt help in the spring Im ripping that ACT out and replacing it with something else.

I guess it could be worse like some of you guys have experienced, but its still a major PITA. Im guessing the PP lost its tension. :thumbdown

 

[Juggalo]

I called David Koyle at ACT. He was very helpful and informative. I think someone said this before. But the problem is the not the install error of the clutch itself, but the missing dowel pins when re-installing the tranny

The real issue is the Mitsubishi's design for the tranny/engine, or more specifically, the lack of engine to tranny bolts, my 90 Mazda 626 had eight or ten. All of our DSM's only have 4 bolts holding the tranny to the engine. Between each of the bolt holes are these any of these dowel pins (or sleeves) the tranny will not truely be aligned, you get get sleeve-like dowel pins that make sure the tranny is ACTUALLY aligned. If you are missing close probably within a few millimeters, but the tranny will not be aligned. This causes the input shaft to put a sideways pressure on the center hub of the clutch disc, eventually with all the spinning makes an uneven force causing the center hub to loosen. The center hub is also what holds those springs tightly in place. So if the center hub can move, then the springs can move, eventually the spinning clutch will dislodge the springs. I took a look at the clutch disc. And tried a little test. The center hob moved way too much. So for those that had the springs fall out, try this test.

Take your finger and put it in the center, can you wiggle the center hub? If you can, its an install error. If a shop did it, then they are responsible for the clutch failure. If you are like me then, you're out of luck. Its your fault. I installed 8 clutches on a DSM, 3 of them were ACT. This one failed, its my fault. I'm 95% sure that it is. The only REAL way to find out is for me to pull the tranny again, and then check to see if any of my dowel pins are gone. I'm not gonna do that, so I will just take the blame.

However, Mr. Koyle was extremely understanding about the situation. He offered to sell me another ACT2600 kit at a discount price. Since I already installed another ACT2600 kit in the car, I declined the offer. I asked him if he could do anything for a flywheel (since I spent $360 on the Fidanza Flywheel) and he offered to cut of a 1/3 of the price....

I just ordered my ACT StreetLite.

In conclusion. If a shop did the install, you are going to have to go after them. If the say its not, then have them pull the tranny and to check if any are missing. If they are, they should have called you before continuing any work. Its like you have a hole in your cyclinder and a shop installs you new pistons anyway.
If you did it yourself, its probably your fault. But call ACT anyway, you might get a deal, and this time when you put the tranny back on. Make sure you do it right.

I don't buy that.

You'd think with an offset as described it would take it's toll on the bearings of the trans and crank. I'm sorry but that material shouldn't break like that.

 

[laserspeeddemon]

I don't buy that.

You'd think with an offset as described it would take it's toll on the bearings of the trans and crank. I'm sorry but that material shouldn't break like that.

It probably did