Recommended Clutch brand

[vcrpro3]

For performance street use, 2.5 intercooled t-1 (approx 225~250hp), A555...
what brand? Looking for brand/performance level only...will decide on vendors later

[MiniMopar]

A stock type T3/T2 hybrid should handle that, but it is close to the edge and might not hold if you make more improvements. How heavy is the car?

For brands, go with Sachs if it's a stocker type. I had a bit less luck with LUK, so to speak but they are still better than most of the other craptacular clutches in the aftermarket. I run a Kevlar clutch on the street in the Daytona. It has it's issues, but overall I'd say it's a decent compromise. It otherwise behaves more like a normal clutch than a ceramic clutch.

If you don't mind only getting 30k or so out of it and having to get used to the touchiness, a ceramic puck style clutch is an option too. I'd go 6-puck. There are ceramic/organic clutches too, but I won't know how those are until the CSX is back together.

[iTurbo]

I've had good luck withe LUK "Repset" stock replacement clutches in my ~200-220 WHP cars.

[moparzrule]

250 HP is right on the brink of destruction for a 2.5L. With a 2.2, at 260 WHP my T2/T3 ripped the hub out of the disc, and since the 2.5 makes more torque I wouldn't risk it.

The TU 6 puck with the blue plate is about the best street/strip clutch up to 350 WHP. With the yellow plate it's good for about 375-400 WHP.
I have the TU 4 puck with blue plate, IMO it's plenty streetable, pedal effort isn't that great and I find you can slip the 4 puck on take off no problem. It's not near as much of a on/off clutch as I thought it would be, and holds 400 WHP.

[slasky]

I have the TU 4 puck with blue plate, IMO it's plenty streetable, pedal effort isn't that great and I find you can slip the 4 puck on take off no problem. It's not near as much of a on/off clutch as I thought it would be, and holds 400 WHP.

+1

Although mine does not see a lot of street time, it is definitely easy to use on the street. I also agree that a t2/t3 setup will be on the fringe for you.

[vcrpro3]

Will a clutch (disc+pp) specified for a T-3 fit (and work) on a 89 2.5/A555 combo?

[MiniMopar]

No. You need a T3 PP with a T2 disc. The A555 has the smaller input shaft with 18 splines. The '91+ cars (T3) use a larger 17-spline shaft.

[MiniMopar]

I used a 6-puck on the street in the CSX for some time until I blew up the trans. It had about 35k on the clutch and it was down to the rivets. Still grabbed OK, though...I guess the rivets can claw into flywheels just as well as ceramic. Tore the crap out of the flywheel too. It was grabby and chattery at low RPMs, but not anything that I couldn't learn to negotiate. I wouldn't ask my wife to try and drive it, though.

[vcrpro3]

Thought so, but had to ask....
Here is a more complete picture of situation; Had turbo probs resulting in change of turbo.... clutch is a kevlar unit--- car has been down for 2 plus months and clutch seemed well and good at that point(could give it 13+psi at all rpms) Got car running (mechanic that works for me thinks car is now running with more power since turbo problem resolved (definitly runs smoother and seems more responsive), but clutch now slips massivly when warm,past 3000rpm and over 5to 6 psi boost (can clutch of this construction go bad from sitting????)

[vcrpro3]

forgot to add; i am in no way abusive to this vehicle-it is a semi daily driver that absolutely has never seen a track.

[MiniMopar]

The Kevlar clutch is slipping? How much power are you making? Did it get oil on it?

[vcrpro3]

The Kevlar clutch is slipping? How much power are you making? Did it get oil on it?
Had a shop do the work for me, i know the mechanic- he is absolutely careful about cleanliness when working on a vehicle, and transmission was not touched. HP? guessing somewhere between 200 to 230 hp max but really have not pushed it hard. It is a 2.5 with 40 over pistons, stock head/valve but ported, 'AlabamaMan'' exhaust manifold, and larger '60 trim' compressor with a stock T-2 hot side controlled by a MP T-1 smec

[MiniMopar]

Hmmm...either I'm making even less power than I thought or there is something wrong with your PP. Is it not fully releasing maybe? What color PP is it?

[vcrpro3]

It's been a while...blue,i think

[MiniMopar]

Yeah, that's exactly what I have. Seems like it should hold no problem. I have it in the heavy Daytona with a 2.2L, Steve M head, FM ported 2pc intake, triple-core IC, Super 70 turbo with TU 3" SV, FM port exhaust mani, full 3" exhaust and 21psi of boost. I haven't taken it to the track yet but I have abused it on the street plenty and it holds fine even when launched as hard as I can.

[WickedShelby88]

I'd be shocked if your not in the 250-300 hp range there Russ. If your clutch is holding then there definitely has to be something wrong with his pressure plate or not releasing all the way like you said.
Its a long shot, but I would even check the clutch cable. Thats just weird that its not holding now. Hell I had a parts store clutch in an 88 shelby Z and it would hold okay making about the same hp you are probably at, just not as much torque due to the fact this was a 2.2. My SVO started pulling that crap on me when the flywheel started warping after a long ordeal with a bad clutch cable. 2.5 vs 2.2 might be the difference though.

[tryingbe]

How many miles is this clutch?

If it is not too old, first thing I'd do is to have somebody step on the clutch and spray couple bottle of brake cleaner into the timing window...

[vcrpro3]

How many miles is this clutch?

If it is not too old, first thing I'd do is to have somebody step on the clutch and spray couple bottle of brake cleaner into the timing window...

Less than 5000k miles....grrr
spraying brake cleaner on the kevlar? no problem??

[tryingbe]

What's the worst it can happen? Clean out all the oil/coolant/whatever? :eyebrows:

There's always the possibility that the mechanic pull the turbo off and dropped some oil in there...

[MiniMopar]

I imagine it would make quite a smell. Doubt it would harm anything, though.

[vcrpro3]

How many miles is this clutch?

If it is not too old, first thing I'd do is to have somebody step on the clutch and spray couple bottle of brake cleaner into the timing window...


:confused: ........i'm sorry-ignorant question here....engine running?or not?

[moparzrule]

I would say running, it has to be spinning......

[vcrpro3]

I would say running, it has to be spinning......

:confused:When i do this, should the clutch be lightly engaged intermittantly to lightly scrub the pressue plate and flywheel surfaces or not....Depending on y'all for your sage advice:thumb:

[WickedShelby88]

I'd say fully disengaged while running have someone spray the crap out of it big time preferably with the dust cover of the trans removed to let the excess run out of the bell. Then while its till disengage have someone take an air blow gun and blow the stuff out to dry it off quickly then try it on the street and see if it helps. At least thats the way I'd do it.

[chilort]

I just bought a Cumberland clutch from AutoZone. So far so good. I love having the sports car clutch feel back.

[Ondonti]

Anyone annoyed by chatter should try a clutchnet clutch. They have a softer ceramic puck that bites into the flywheel/PP instead of rubbing and vibrating.

I love mine. My 3 puck solid hub from clutchnet drives better then a sprung hub 4 puck that had harder pucks that liked to chatter.

[vcrpro3]

I'd say fully disengaged while running have someone spray the crap out of it big time preferably with the dust cover of the trans removed to let the excess run out of the bell. Then while its till disengage have someone take an air blow gun and blow the stuff out to dry it off quickly then try it on the street and see if it helps. At least thats the way I'd do it.

Oh well,tried that -did'nt work....gonna have to save my pennies and buy a new clutch and pay for R&R again as i don't have time/skill to do myself:banghead:

[moparzrule]

Anyone annoyed by chatter should try a clutchnet clutch. They have a softer ceramic puck that bites into the flywheel/PP instead of rubbing and vibrating.

I love mine. My 3 puck solid hub from clutchnet drives better then a sprung hub 4 puck that had harder pucks that liked to chatter.

:confused2: I have a 4 puck in my shadow and a 6 puck in my dakota, both from TU and both sprung hub with blue plates. Neither of them have any chattering and the 6 puck engages so smooth you can't tell it's not a stock disc, and the 4 puck is not nearly as much of an on/off clutch as I thought it would be, it's fairly easy to slip on engagement and make an easy startoff. So I dunno what you are talking about!

[Ondonti]

:confused2: I have a 4 puck in my shadow and a 6 puck in my dakota, both from TU and both sprung hub with blue plates. Neither of them have any chattering and the 6 puck engages so smooth you can't tell it's not a stock disc, and the 4 puck is not nearly as much of an on/off clutch as I thought it would be, it's fairly easy to slip on engagement and make an easy startoff. So I dunno what you are talking about!

TU's clutch vendor might use the same pucks, therefore you wouldnt know what I was talking about ;)
Consider that a good thing. Plenty of people have bad experiences with bad pucked clutches. I say its all because of poor quality ceramic pucks. These pucks slip and glaze instead of biting.

[moparzrule]

Oh, which 4 puck brand are you talking about?

[Putter]

I find my TU 6puck to be an aweful clutch for daily driver/track car. It chatters bad enough you can see the car shake (about 10k miles on it) and every time I engage it it sounds like tires over paint. From disengaged to engaged is roughly and inch of travel.

My car makes decent power 20psi from a T04E ported head blah blah blah, and I'm looking to go back to an organic disc of some sort. Maybe an organic disc with my Blue TU cover (if it can be salvaged). My flywheel has a 2-3mm deep groove in it and the ceramic has bits and pieces torn away from it upon last inspection.

And of course I can street drive it, but not smoothly, and anyone else I let drive the car can't get out of the driveway without killing it. And these are people also have performance cars, and used to heavy clutches etc.

I find it so hard to modulate that instead of trying to I would just go more rpm. It seems not to grab past 6000rpms with the DR's which I'm sure is why its ruined so quickly.

There's a post in another clutch thread of a guy running ~12.50's @ 110mph on a t3/t2 hybrid clutch... Likely if treated well that may be a better choice. I ran a nonturbo bottom dollar replacement clutch into the 100mph zone a few times, and in the 90's for the better part of 3 years.

[moparzrule]

Did you break in the clutch properly for 300-500 miles or hammer it with 5 miles on it like I see most people do and then complain when the clutch starts acting up.

[moparzrule]

There's a post in another clutch thread of a guy running ~12.50's @ 110mph on a t3/t2 hybrid clutch..


Hmm, interesting, was it in an L body? Because at 260 WHP in my daytona this is what happened to my T2/T3 clutch from FWD-P...
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m216/87wagon/clutch1.jpg

[Putter]

I remember now why I quit coming to these boards, tm.com td.com.

Yes I did break the clutch in properly and yes I am a professional mechanic.

It is not very polite to automatically assume ignorance.

[MiniMopar]

I remember now why I quit coming to these boards, tm.com td.com.

Yes I did break the clutch in properly and yes I am a professional mechanic.

It is not very polite to automatically assume ignorance.

Not everyone does.

Which PP did you use? I had a 6 puck for a time in the CSX and found that while it had a short life it did not cause problems otherwise. It was from RP I think, and it had 3 ceramic pucks and 3 organic pucks. I was probably not making as much power as you, though. It was grabby and chattery at low RPMs, but it was manageable on the street. No one else could drive it, though. The trip to the emissions place was a joy.

I have a Kevlar clutch in the Daytona and it grabs smoothly like an organic clutch under most conditions but has the same or worse chattery-ness at low RPM. My hood dances wildly when backing up. Others that push them hard at the strip don't have the best results.

The CSX is getting the TU ceramic/organic clutch, so we'll see how that goes.

[jckrieger]

Alright, I have to chime in here as well. I don't have the TU 6 puck ceramic, but I have one of the last 6 puck ceramic RP clutches in my 87 CSX. I installed the clutch when the car was still stock, and eventually modified the car to be well into the 12's with the same clutch. The clutch will hold torque if you are nice to it, but as Putter said, if you let it slip, it will never grab. My car is making a lot of torque (spins the tires from a roll in 3rd with an OBX) and if I don't baby the 2-3 shift, the clutch can slip.

Driveability is pretty much garbage if you asked a normal person. I can drive the car daily, but the car is much more at home smoking the tires through the first 3 gears rather than making a slow gradual start. If you try to follow an old person pulling away from a stoplight, you will have to give them a 10 second head start. The clutch doesn't chatter too bad, but then again, I pretty much lock it up and let the tires do the slipping. I would not recommend a 4 or 6 puck ceramic clutch to anyone who is picky about operation.

I've personally run the T3/T2 clutches from Dealer's Equipment (are they still in business?) and had pretty good luck. I have had a couple full weight 13 second street tire cars that were running 25psi with the stock turbo and had no issues. The problem with the organic disc is it can glaze and begin to slip after 15-25K miles. I found at boost levels below 20psi, the organic disc wasn't a problem. The reason people are blowing up the discs is due to the fact they hold so well. If you don't launch the car hard with slicks in 1st gear, you probably won't have a problem with the center. Be reasonable on the launches and a T3/T2 hybrid should live a long and happy life.

Regards,

Clark

[Putter]

I'm using the blue plate supplied with the 6 puck disc from Turbos Unleashed. I'm aslo running a 555 trans with 3.50 final drive and OBX diff. Having such a high first gear is also rather rough with such a narrow friction point.

It would be nice to have a small diameter multidisc organic setup available for our cars.

I can't seem to find any information on what the ALM friction material is that is available with the McLeod frictions. Does anyone have a link or paper?

[MiniMopar]

I also have an A555/520 hybrid trans with a 3.50:1 final drive and an OBX in the CSX. TU does offer a yellow plate that has more pressure without much more pedal effort, but I am not sure it would help if the pucks are coming apart. I have a T2/T3 clutch in the CSX right now and it will heat up and not hold if launched hard on the street and slips horribly at the strip. That's why I'm going to try the ceramic.organic clutch.

I don't have any hard data on the McLeod clutches, but they seem to have made this one.

[Ondonti]

Did you break in the clutch properly for 300-500 miles or hammer it with 5 miles on it like I see most people do and then complain when the clutch starts acting up.


The clutch I purchased was a 4 puck eurodrive with a sachs +40% TIII plate on a Fidanza aluminum.

I wont share the other brands I have seen because people seem to have problems regardless of the vendor.

I did a proper "break in" of that clutch and it just sucked.

The thing about ceramic puck clutches is that there is no real breakin unless your Flywheel and PP are machined improperly.

If your ceramic pucked clutch doesnt hold high rpm engagements the first time you go for a drive, or it chatters, it will always behave that way. All a ceramic clutch needs is to go through a heat cycle to make sure it holds under all conditions. If it doesnt hold after it gets hot, it will never hold and you need to replace what isnt working.

Thats what DSM drag racers tell me though. I have found that advice to be well worth it. My 3 puck was good to hold and spin 24.5" slicks straight out of the box with zero mileage. It behaves perfectly on the street now. My old 4 puck from eurodrive behaved poorly during standard clutch "breakin" which it didnt need. Then the chatter got a little better after the first few hundred miles, but I think it was just a crappy clutch with crappy ceramic pucks.

-------
My point is that you can tell a crappy ceramic clutch the first time you drive, even if you are taking it easy. It will always be a crappy clutch no matter how long you go easy on it.

I can let Cory and Tyler try driving my car if anyone has doubts about clutchnet clutches.

I think a 4-6 puck sprung hub from them would be great. I am a very good at the clutch pedal because I learned stick on that POS 4 puck chatterbox I built long ago. I can slip the 3 puck solid hub easily with no fuss but the moment I move the clutch pedal to where I need it, it locks up with no questions.

I am sure that regardless of brand, you can get a bad clutch or PP....and your flywheel might not be properly machined either. In all instances, you can have poor performance. Having good ceramic pucks really helps. I like the soft ones that dont glaze and stop working after you slip them a little bit (the exact problem Clark and I have had on our bad pucked clutches)

[moparzrule]

I remember now why I quit coming to these boards, tm.com td.com.

Yes I did break the clutch in properly and yes I am a professional mechanic.

It is not very polite to automatically assume ignorance.

Umm, I asked a question I didn't assume anything. I was stating that MOST people don't break in the clutch, I didn't say all. So obviously, that wouldn't include you!

[moparzrule]

Be reasonable on the launches and a T3/T2 hybrid should live a long and happy life.

Regards,

Clark

Did you see what happened to my T2/T3 up there? That clutch had ~4000 miles on it, and I was in 5th gear when it happened! Never ever launched hard, never had more than plain street tires with that clutch.

[jckrieger]

Did you see what happened to my T2/T3 up there? That clutch had ~4000 miles on it, and I was in 5th gear when it happened! Never ever launched hard, never had more than plain street tires with that clutch.

I'm not saying you can't get a bad disc, but I believe only one of the manufacturers was actually producing junk. I can't remember if the 4 or 6 spring hubs tend to be more reliable. I'd hope our vendors know which discs to avoid by now so similar exploding hub problems don't appear again. I know the T3/T2 hybrid clutches I ran HARD always worked fine, even in a heavy car.

[moparzrule]

I know the T3/T2 hybrid clutches I ran HARD always worked fine, even in a heavy car.

Depends on how much power you were making! That clutch never slipped, just one time after I just upped the boost and in 5th gear all of the sudden it felt like it went into neutral no matter what gear it was in! LOL

[MiniMopar]

Yeah, there seems to be some variance in the quality between manufacturers and I for one haven't been paying too close attention...but perhaps I will now. I know Gary D drove his heavy '89 Shelby Z hard into the 12s on a T2/T3 clutch of some sort and never had a problem with it as far as I can remember.

[jckrieger]

Depends on how much power you were making! That clutch never slipped, just one time after I just upped the boost and in 5th gear all of the sudden it felt like it went into neutral no matter what gear it was in! LOL

I was making plenty of power... enough for mid 13 second runs in my full weight 89 Daytona Shelby on 2.0 60's. The car was running a stock turbo at 25psi of boost with 3" exhaust. I will admit, after about 10-20K miles the clutch began slipping above 20psi in the higher gears. I took the clutch back out, took an orbital sander to the flywheel, pressure plate, and disc, then ran it again for another 20K miles before I upgraded to a better clutch. I used to beat on that clutch HARD, including burnouts and 2nd gear clutch dumps. I would have no problem running a hybrid clutch in a car at 18psi as long as it's a stockish setup.

[moparzrule]

I would have no problem running a hybrid clutch in a car at 18psi as long as it's a stockish setup.

Mid 13's in a 3100 pound car is right at 250 WHP. Like I said, mine snapped at 260 WHP! Never slipped though, I had no warning.
18 psi in a stockish setup would be like 200 WHP, if that. I wouldn't have any issue with the T2/T3 clutch with 225 WHP in a heavy car and 250-275 WHP in an L body.