Also, best luck on the seal. When you say it presses in easy, do you mean into the seal carrier or over the crank flange?
BUILD THREAD 86 GP 2+2~Blown 6.0
- Thread starter 81cutlass
- Start date
What is the minimum allowable thickness on the flywheel? If it's cut too far, then you're going to smoke that new clutch in a hurry. If you know this already, then ignore my question. Only advising of this from experience.
Your clutch had the bejesus slipped out of it to make it look like that. Do you know the culprit?
Your clutch had the bejesus slipped out of it to make it look like that. Do you know the culprit?
The old one is a Competition clutch I bought used with low miles on it. I think it is a 'Stage 2' clutch with '65-70% torque increase' over stock.
The new one is a Cyber which is sold through a local guy (he owns Fabbot, the company that makes the colorado AR5 swap parts to LS), it's made by the same company that makes many aftermarket clutches from what I understand and he just plans to buy enough to sell with his kits that he gets his own paint job on it. I know the seller and it was available quick. 814ftbs rating or something so more than what I need. Looking around it's the same as a Monster stage 3 which is a 550-700hp rated clutch. I am at the low end of that so it's a good fit for me.
I can say I paid just shy of half of what Monster gets for it minus the flywheel since I can't use the normal short crank LS flywheel with my setup.
1998 - 2002 GM FBODY Street Clutch | Single Disc
We manufacture FBODY high performance street clutches. Get a single disc w/ standard weight flywheel from Monster Clutch Co. Order today!
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The OD of the seal pressed very easily into the ID of the aluminum rear cover. I could push the seal in with 2 fingers, no hammer required. I had to hammer the old seal out but the new one fell into place.
I went to my buddy (who I got the clutch from) and he had a few extra LS covers laying around. I traded him one that had a seal in that fit good. I think my rear cover ID was just too large on the tolerance for these new style seals. The 07ish Gen 4 cover he had that I measured was 0.002" smaller on the seal bore in the cover than my 00 Gen 3 cover.
I also looked at the National branded seal from the other parts store (Rockauto claimed it was the same as the old OEM seal) and it was not, it's the same as the Felpro. I have determined there are only 2 seals available. One is the F A G brand one and the other is the Felpro one. They are the same general style however.
Not sure on the min thickness. McLoed doesn't have it published anywhere? He only took off 0.017" so I am not worried. There is 0.050" of wear allowed on the new clutch before it's into the rivets so my gut check says it's less than the wear range of the clutch so I am OK.
I don't know the exact culprit but I have some guesses.
#1 the clutch was used (slightly) before I got it, I have put ~15k miles on it and probably 50+ passes over 3500 rpm clutch dumps at the track. Partially it's just wore out.
#2 the 2 step was set to 4000 rpm last weekend. It's usually at 3500. The timing is also is at 16 degrees instead of 12 degrees at 4000 RPM. The car is making more power down low that it probably ever has before. The track was OK and it hooked up good every pass. Didn't spin a single time.
#3 the clutch was slipping after I let off the pedal and the RPM rose, then sagged as it coupled up top in 1st gear. I said 'eh it's fine' when i glanced at the logs but I think that is a nogo. I thought 2000 RPM of slip across the clutch is OK for maybe 2 seconds but I think it is putting too much heat into it. I sketched on the snap below to show. The dotted line is the RPM curve the engine should make as it speeds up but the red line is what it does. It climbs up to 5500 RPM right after I let the clutch out, kinda hovers there like a the stall on a converter while the RPM picks up and then finally couples and drags the engine RPM down. This same thing happened 2 months ago when I raced and broke my clutch pedal push rod but it reved up a few hundred RPM higher and the rev limiter was 6000 instead of 6400 like it is now. There is too much going on for me to really notice the couple extra RPM for 1 second to notice when I am actually in the car.
#4 the clutch is probably just too small for the power I am making at the weight and a decent suspension that hooks.
I did get the trans install done tonight. Going to break the clutch in tomorrow.
Did my first clutch break in cruise today. Goal is 2-3 good heat cycles to bed in the resin and surfaces and then maybe 500 miles which I will put on to the track next weekend. New clutch is a BUNCH more friendly. I bet it has 50% of the pedal effort. Between putting a rod end on my clutch pedal and this new clutch my pedal actually feels ALMOST like what I expect a stock pedal to feel. The clutch actually uses the full pedal travel and it feels like it has a lot of 'squish' in it (in a good way) and I can vary the load a lot better than the old clutch which felt on-off.
People claim this Monster Stg 3 clutch feels almost like stock so this is what I imagine a stock clutch would feel like. It's almost so easy on my leg that I feel like it's going to slip because the spring pressure isn't forcing me to apply every ounce of leg energy to release the clutch lol. As long as it hooks i'm happy.
Kinda scary that the first passes will be 6 hours away but ohh well.
Also processed the videos of the 4 passes from the track Saturday.
I want to put the camera on the drivers side front wheel next time. It looks like the front tires are about ready to come off the ground on the 1-2 shift.
People claim this Monster Stg 3 clutch feels almost like stock so this is what I imagine a stock clutch would feel like. It's almost so easy on my leg that I feel like it's going to slip because the spring pressure isn't forcing me to apply every ounce of leg energy to release the clutch lol. As long as it hooks i'm happy.
Kinda scary that the first passes will be 6 hours away but ohh well.
Also processed the videos of the 4 passes from the track Saturday.
I want to put the camera on the drivers side front wheel next time. It looks like the front tires are about ready to come off the ground on the 1-2 shift.
I haven't shared a dose of self inflicted HPtuners related agony lately so I thought I would share.
I worked on improving the idle a few weeks ago so my AC wouldn't kill the engine when engaged. It seemed better but not 100%. I did some reading and as usual someone from 15 years ago made some complex combination of math parameters, graphs and logging menus to dial the airflow in. It took 3 threads of HPtwizzlers threads in order to find the right combination of tables that would work.
Did some fiddling with making sure units were all the same, and I got the 'new' idle base airflow idle table. Plugged it in and the idle was still bad.
Turns out even though the PRNDL switch is not installed and the tune is set to manual the ECM still things the trans is in 3rd gear, which among other things is probably why the ECM won't let the cruise enable. Great.
Anyways I have Drag Week knockoff this weekend. I am also bringing a set of 3.42 gears and spare moser axles because, reasons. I went to Byron Thursday last week to spectate Drag Week and I am going to be there next Saturday (and it's where I blew my rear axle for sure twice, potentially three times). I'd rather not make it four. Buddy of mine asked if I went to hide a spare set of axles in the woods. I decided it was a good idea to order a set of spares and hide them in my back seat for the trip, lol. Besides I need them for the cutlass rear end build this winter anyways.
I worked on improving the idle a few weeks ago so my AC wouldn't kill the engine when engaged. It seemed better but not 100%. I did some reading and as usual someone from 15 years ago made some complex combination of math parameters, graphs and logging menus to dial the airflow in. It took 3 threads of HPtwizzlers threads in order to find the right combination of tables that would work.
Did some fiddling with making sure units were all the same, and I got the 'new' idle base airflow idle table. Plugged it in and the idle was still bad.
Turns out even though the PRNDL switch is not installed and the tune is set to manual the ECM still things the trans is in 3rd gear, which among other things is probably why the ECM won't let the cruise enable. Great.
Anyways I have Drag Week knockoff this weekend. I am also bringing a set of 3.42 gears and spare moser axles because, reasons. I went to Byron Thursday last week to spectate Drag Week and I am going to be there next Saturday (and it's where I blew my rear axle for sure twice, potentially three times). I'd rather not make it four. Buddy of mine asked if I went to hide a spare set of axles in the woods. I decided it was a good idea to order a set of spares and hide them in my back seat for the trip, lol. Besides I need them for the cutlass rear end build this winter anyways.
Tell me your diff is junk but you wanna send it, without telling me your diff is junk...I want to NOT trailer the car home again....
Am I flooding the thread with incremental hardly informative updates? Yes.
I did get my linelock installed today. Goal is to start the burnout in 1st, and quick stab the clutch to shift to second to give a bit warmer of a burnout. Hard to hold the brakes while doing the burnout AND stab the clutch to shift so this should help. 1st gear doesn't seem to have the wheel speed necessary to get the tire activated and make any smoke unless I sit at like 5000+ rpm for longer than I want.
I was able to bend the front supply line and connect to the outlet side of the linelock and just made a simple bracket out of some 3/4x1/8 aluminum bar too hold to the MC. Made one new line from the MC to the supply side of the linelock and bam!
I am all packed so I just gotta run to the ATM, beer store, top off fuel and load my totes in the trunk tomorrow and off to drag week(end) early Friday AM.
I did get my linelock installed today. Goal is to start the burnout in 1st, and quick stab the clutch to shift to second to give a bit warmer of a burnout. Hard to hold the brakes while doing the burnout AND stab the clutch to shift so this should help. 1st gear doesn't seem to have the wheel speed necessary to get the tire activated and make any smoke unless I sit at like 5000+ rpm for longer than I want.
I was able to bend the front supply line and connect to the outlet side of the linelock and just made a simple bracket out of some 3/4x1/8 aluminum bar too hold to the MC. Made one new line from the MC to the supply side of the linelock and bam!
I am all packed so I just gotta run to the ATM, beer store, top off fuel and load my totes in the trunk tomorrow and off to drag week(end) early Friday AM.
