proxlamus© Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 I figured I would write a quick review for those interested in upgrading their clutch on their Z .. Now by all means, I am a terrible terrible writer, so bear with me.. First off I started worrying about the clutch once I upgraded my N/A engine, and bolted on a turbo and some beefy injectors. I noticed heavy slippage around 10psi and it just got worse over time, so I knew I had to upgrade. Running the stock OEM clutch on a 225mm was not fun. I found a cheap 240mm flywheel, and chose to get one of the best... an ACT Stage II heavy duty pressure plate rated to handle 500ft/lb and a ACT organic street clutch. I chose the sprung organic street clutch because I drive nearly 40 miles a day in my Z so I needed something driveable. The swap went rather pleasant, I noticed EXEDY was stamped on the pressure plate and clutch disc, but I guess ACT installs firmer springs in the units or something. Upon startup the clutch was much stiffer than stock but nothing too bad... this clutch chatters ALOT especially with this heavy duty pressure plate. After about 600 miles of break in I could actually see how this clutch engaged.. this clutch performs like a performance clutch should (especially for $450) and made very very firm engagements.. took time to get use to slipping the clutch a little. After 3,000 miles I noticed the clutch was VERY hard to shift into 1st at a stop, and engaging in reverse was hell. Why is this? Well the metal fingers on the pressure plate began to break in, and I needed a longer pedal throw to full disengage the clutch. I chose to upgrade to a Nissan Pathfinder 1988, 11/16 slave cylinder, as this unit is much smaller than the stock slave cylinder. Having a smaller cylinder will give you a much longer throw. Only downside is a firmer pedal. Installed it in 15 minutes and everything was great! and for $16 ? you can't beat that! Now the clutch has 6,000 miles, and I am having shifting problems, and I can not shift into 1st or reverse at a dead stop. Infact I had to rev to 3,500 RPM for the clutch to slip enough to go into gear... can the pressure plate be completly broken in now?? jeesh I hope.. this sucks.. Soo i bought a new OEM master cylinder, thinking I had a leak or something, no luck. I decided to upgrade to a 3/4" Tilton universal master cylinder from the old 5/8" stock unit. Why? Having a larger diameter master cylinder displaces more fluid, which on the slave end, gives you a longer throw. Advantages were less pedal pressure, and more pedal throw. Everything was perfect after the 3/4" Master Cylinder, however because I still had the 11/16" slave, the pedal pressure was.. well.. extremely stiff.. my girlfriend couldnt even disengage the clutch .. haha.. My recommendation is upgrade to the 3/4" Master cylinder, and keep the STOCK slave cylinder.. and be DONE WITH IT... the master cylinder was $79 and I needed a flared fitting which was $17. I've spoken with alot of guys who are running ACT clutches and other performance units, but they have not had any problems, partially because they have not put on as much miles as I have, and mine is definatly broken in. (notice the coat hanger on 2 bolts to hold the flywheel still as I tightend the bolts) Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 After 3' date='000 miles I noticed the clutch was VERY hard to shift into 1st at a stop, and engaging in reverse was hell. Why is this? Well the metal fingers on the pressure plate began to break in, and I needed a longer pedal throw to full disengage the clutch. I chose to upgrade to a Nissan Pathfinder 1988, 11/16 slave cylinder, as this unit is much smaller than the stock slave cylinder. Having a smaller cylinder will give you a much longer throw. Only downside is a firmer pedal. Installed it in 15 minutes and everything was great! and for $16 ? you can't beat that! Now the clutch has 6,000 miles, and I am having shifting problems, and I can not shift into 1st or reverse at a dead stop. Infact I had to rev to 3,500 RPM for the clutch to slip enough to go into gear... can the pressure plate be completly broken in now?? jeesh I hope.. this sucks.. Soo i bought a new OEM master cylinder, thinking I had a leak or something, no luck. I decided to upgrade to a 3/4" Tilton universal master cylinder from the old 5/8" stock unit. Why? Having a larger diameter master cylinder displaces more fluid, which on the slave end, gives you a longer throw. Advantages were less pedal pressure, and more pedal throw. Everything was perfect after the 3/4" Master Cylinder, however because I still had the 11/16" slave, the pedal pressure was.. well.. extremely stiff.. my girlfriend couldnt even disengage the clutch .. haha.. My recommendation is upgrade to the 3/4" Master cylinder, and keep the STOCK slave cylinder.. and be DONE WITH IT... the master cylinder was $79 and I needed a flared fitting which was $17. I've spoken with alot of guys who are running ACT clutches and other performance units, but they have not had any problems, partially because they have not put on as much miles as I have, and mine is definatly broken in.[/quote'] This whole thing is pretty strange, and I haven't heard of the pp "breaking in" like this before. The fingers are springs and spring steel is supposed to return to its original shape, that's what springs do. I think you may have a combination of other problems going on. First, the stiffer pp can cause the master or slave to go bad. When I installed my ACT I got about 50 miles before I had the issues you're having. Replaced the master and the slave, fixed. Second, you might have cracked the throwout fork. The forks do split I've seen it a couple times in person and quite a few times here on hybridz. If you had a fork split as it got worse it might require more throw. Usually once it splits the clutch won't disengage. Also your chatter is surprising. From the pics it looks like you had the flywheel surfaced, but since you're not using the puck disk I wouldn't figure that you would have chatter. I've driven 510s with the comp roadster pp (which is like 8 times as strong as the regular 510 pp) with a stock disk and didn't get any chatter whatsoever. It was like doing a leg press with your left leg, but no chatter. Maybe since you're a turbo guy you overheated the flywheel and warped it trying to build boost when launching... that's just a guess. I'm using the 225mm ACT with a stock disk and I have no chatter and it's been in for 20K miles. I never had to mess with the cylinder sizes, just replaced them once when they failed. It holds down my ~240 whp just fine. Looking forward to more people's input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Just thinking could also have a flex line that is balooning instead of putting all of the pressure to the slave... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted July 20, 2006 Author Share Posted July 20, 2006 ahh good theories.. I just assumed maybe the metal fingers were breaking in.. as I could not source down what in the world was wrong with my setup. I am running a stainless steel clutch line, so I hope there is no ballooning... as for the chatter, I have not had ANY chatter after the intial 1,000 mile break in or so .. but the directions indicated chatter is common on initial break in. I checked the fork when I pulled the engine out 2 months ago, no cracks, or bends. I remember reading all the threads about ACT clutchs and seeing a pic of the fork BENT! jeesh! so I checked it out.. no probs Weird thing was I ran a NEW master cylinder and a NEW 11/16 slave cylinder at the same time, and still had issues.. no air bubbles or anything... thats when I gave up, returned the master and bought a 3/4 and life was good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Well that's pretty weird. Don't know what to say other than you got it working and that's the important thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 Did you swap your throwout bearing collar for the shorter one that came on a 2+2 (for use with a 240mm flywheel) ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted July 20, 2006 Author Share Posted July 20, 2006 yes sir! I originally ran the setup with the longer collar hoping to get a longer throw.. I had a few issues with it disengaging.. so I swapped in the shorter collar, after the ACT throwout bearing started squeeling... with a Nissan throwout bearing, and the shorter collar everything worked out rather well... untill around 3,000 miles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtcookson Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 At what point in the pedal travel does the clutch disengage? (near the top, middle, or closer to the end of the pedal travel) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted July 21, 2006 Author Share Posted July 21, 2006 clutch fully disengages in the middle... there is maybe an inch from the floor to the engagement point... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtcookson Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 That's interesting... that should definitely be plenty to fully disengage it. That's very odd that the thing had shifting issues with enough play like that. Good to hear it works now though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 Gotta wonder if maybe he tweaked the springs by running the longer collar. That's the only other thing I can come up with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted December 23, 2007 Author Share Posted December 23, 2007 Good ol thread back from the dead. Same problems now.. and I am using an 11/16" slave and 3/4" master.. apparently the STOCK 3/4" slave didnt work out for very long. sooo.. eh. Im going to try making an adjustable slave cylinder "arm" or push-rod. maybe adding .5" will help me out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Did you grease the input shaft and the inside of the TOB collar? I once bought a car from someone who had recently swapped the transmission and neglected to do this. The result was exactly what you are talking about - after a couple thousand miles corrosion made it stick and the clutch wouldn't fully disengage - it was most obvious in first or reverse because they have shortest gear ratios. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
510six Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 If you can find someone with an old PL510 clutch throwout bearing fork, the rod that goes from the slave to the clutch fork is adjustable . It`s what I have used with my current tripple disc setup, even when I was running a sintered iron disc with a 2600 lb pressure plate it worked quite well with no issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted December 24, 2007 Author Share Posted December 24, 2007 Forrest it was lubed properly with wheel bearing grease.. and a whole lot of it 510six... good call.. Ill start looking around! thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 Gotta wonder if maybe he tweaked the springs by running the longer collar. That's the only other thing I can come up with. I was thinking this too. I'm running ACT kits with stock master and slave cylinders on both cars, with no problem... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mario_82_ZXT Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 If you can find someone with an old PL510 clutch throwout bearing fork, the rod that goes from the slave to the clutch fork is adjustable . It`s what I have used with my current tripple disc setup, even when I was running a sintered iron disc with a 2600 lb pressure plate it worked quite well with no issues. I think some of the 240z's had them as well. If you have a good drill bit and a drill press you can drill through yours and use threaded rod and some jam nuts to make your own. Mario Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted September 25, 2008 Author Share Posted September 25, 2008 Problem solved.. here is the thread http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=138250 basically the rivets holding the diaphram stretched causing the pressure plate to be loose and wobble around. The longer throw I created with new master/slave cylinders and slave rods.. it just kept stretching and stretching. ACT fixed this for me =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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