Intro:
Last weekend I departed from my house on campus to visit my parents and help with a little yardwork. While I was there visiting, I noticed my spec clutch sitting in the garage collecting dust. It had only been on my car for a summer but no joy had been received from it, only headache. It got me thinking. Why is that clutch not in my car now?

Some time in June 05, not long after the clutch was installed and broken in, my transmission started making this horrible grinding noise. This forced me to yank out the motor and trans again to find out what was wrong. The inner ring of my flexplate had been completely ripped out of the plate. Thinking of it as a fluke or a freak accident, I picked up another flexplate from StarTurboTalon and installed it. Not soon after, that flexplate was also destroyed; The center of it still bolted to the crankshaft and the rest of the plate still attached to the clutch. I decided the clutch was at fault so I put my stock clutch back in and called it a day.

That was last year. It's been months and the stock clutch is holding up beautifully. My warranty is up on the spec clutch so there is no help from them. Also, I did notice that if you look straight at the clutch, the disc isnt centered underneath the pressure plate. I figure that may have something to do with the problems I encountered. I think I may take the clutch to a machine shop and see if it can be rebalanced or something. Im out of ideas and I am open to any input.

Dave

Weird, I thought I put this in the mtx section??

I would have sent it back a long time ago if I were you ... try to get at least some money out of it. Obviously, if your stock clutch is working just fine something is wrong with it.

The disc might not be centered from when to removed it, the flywheel could be out of round, Balence is a possability but i wouldnt expect the disc center location to be a side effect. The input shaft of the trans can also be bent, not sure if i still have that shaft or not.

Could be a lot of things.

Terry

Originally posted by Star Turbo Talon
The disc might not be centered from when to removed it, the flywheel could be out of round, Balence is a possability but i wouldnt expect the disc center location to be a side effect. The input shaft of the trans can also be bent, not sure if i still have that shaft or not. Could be a lot of things. Terry

Well, Im willing to rule out the trans being a culprit because the stock clutch is in there now, and has been for months. I havent had any issues with it since I put the stock clutch back in there and I drive the car nearly every day; Highway trips, around town, you get the idea. Also, Im not sure what was meant by getting some money out of it? This clutch will not be pawned off on somebody else. Ill try to get Spec's opinion on this thing but in the mean time, Im sure you would all like some pics.

Also, thanks for moving this to the appropriate section.

i just pulled my trans a week ago,and seen the clutch disk wasnt centered on my stage 5 spec. i never had any problems you have had.

Here are the pics....finally! This was on a non-turbo dsm btw.

Just heard from spec:

"We've seen it on stock clutches and with ours, in addition to other
performance clutch companies. There's only been one or two cars with our kit that I know of that have ever cracked a flexplate. It's not a SPEC thing. That's why there is a non-modular option. It won't be balance...Ours is more perfectly balanced than any, given our wheel is billet machined and not cast. I'll check with tech and see if there is a common denominator to the cars we've seen and get back to you."

If it's not a problem with the clutch, then where does the problem originate?

Originally posted by eclpsmoneypit95
Just heard from spec: "We've seen it on stock clutches and with ours, in addition to other performance clutch companies. There's only been one or two cars with our kit that I know of that have ever cracked a flexplate. It's not a SPEC thing. That's why there is a non-modular option. It won't be balance...Ours is more perfectly balanced than any, given our wheel is billet machined and not cast. I'll check with tech and see if there is a common denominator to the cars we've seen and get back to you." If it's not a problem with the clutch, then where does the problem originate?

Sure. That's why both times I've seen / heard of this, it's been on SPEC clutches (or the result of a catastrophic engine failure) ?