trufc

Whenever I burn the clutch in first gear on a hill the car has a mean shutter. Its only when I first start and no other times. Is this my aftermarket alluminum flywheel? I have a ACT six puck w/ extreme pressure plate and an alluminum flywheel from Mazdatrix. They are all brand new parts.

Archangels

i believe thats clutch chatter, and with a 6puck and if i remember correctly that cant be avoided.... then again it's not exactly bad from what i'm told....

Sideways7

iTrader: (7)

Yeah, I think its more the 6-puck than the flywheel thats the problem.

trufc

Does anyone else have a six puck? Does it do the same thing or do some burn smoothly. Cause its pretty bad where it shakes the whole car! Enough for my foot to shake so much I can't keep the gas pedal steady enough and it sometimes dies or revs up. Its pretty embarassing on hills. Do most people here just run street clutches?

Ted Webster

does the six puck have a sprung center?? If not, thats what is causing the shutter. Unsprung centers work better as high rpm --drop the hammer disc's. I've heard of others running them too, and the same stuff happening.

AcidShock

iTrader: (49)

Starting smoothly in an RX-7 with an unsprung 6-puck is something of an art. Even after three years I still chatter it once in a great while. Just how it is, heh.

Archangels

yep dude you'll have to live with it....

but to ease your pain, it's normal....

trufc

Thanks for the help guys. I was just in the process of rebuilding and almost was gonna change to my stock flywheel setup to see if it went away. Now I know better, thanks!

Smoken'

iTrader: (1)

yeah, it takes a little while to get used to having a 6 puck and LW flywheel. Its pretty funny when you let somebody else drive it and they stall it b4 they make it out of the driveway.

Syonyk

Theft prevention. Even if they do start it, they won't be able to get it anywhere.

I want a lightweight flywheel, but my NA doesn't make enough power that I need any fancy sort of clutch.

-=Russ=-

uRizen

iTrader: (2)

Bah, they'll just throw it on a flat-bed. Do the sprung center 6-pucks have significantly less chatter? I'm kinda doing some shopping trying to see if converting my GXL to turbo will be worth the extra bucks and that's one of the things on the list.

Archangels

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that is so true!!!!!!!!

Funkspectrum

iTrader: (5)

shudder sucks....it took me a while to figure out how to get it smooth...

buttsjim

The springs in the clutch center absorb some of the shock of taking up the drive. Without the springs, the shock will be transferred to the rest of the drivetrain, so you get shudder. The good part is that more of your torque is making it to the rear wheels.

The Mazdatrix or Racing Beat torque brace for the engine works well at eliminating the shudder.

Edit: my experience with the torque brace is that it eliminates shudder with the heavy duty clutches, which have less center springing than stock. I don't know that it will eliminate shudder on a springless 6-puck, and I shouldn't have said that. I'm sure it would help, but I can't say that it will eliminate it.

uRizen

iTrader: (2)

Cool, good to know, thanks.

The torque brace is definatly a good idea but I'd make sure to replace your motor mounts with new solid or poly mounts and make sure the subframe is in good shape.

I've seen many accounts where adding a torque brace will wear down the motor mounts much faster and in high-torque turbo applications can shear them out-right if they're still the stock style.

Kory_yahi

how far is the new clutch broken in? Mine shuttered a ton when I first put it in, now after about 1,000 miles it is completly broken in and I get a shutter every once in a while taking off in 1st.

RETed

Whoever the idiot who recommended that combination should be shot.

The 6-puck copper disk is NOT meant to be slipped!
Stop trying to slip it!
It's going to eat your lightened flywheel in a few months.

If it's chattering, you're trying to slip the clutch.
You just need to dump it when you engage it.
That's how you're supposed to drive a copper puck clutch.
Slipping a copper puck clutch will cause the copper pucks to eat into the flywheel!


-Ted

Cybaster

i went to a mechanic, and HE stalled in front of his shop driveway.....

ACTman

Springs have nothing to do with chatter (shudder). Actually a spring centered disc tends to make chatter worse. What causes the chatter is the higher friction. Chatter only occurs because when combined with flexible mounts, the engine tends to wind up in it's mounts as the higher friction clutch material occilates from slipping to grabbing. With solid mounts there is no chatter even with the most aggressive discs because there is no windup affect. On the other hand springs in the disc tends to increase the windup and therefore increase chatter.

Now for the original question about the shudder. There is no doubt that the disc is causing most of the chatter but the flywheel also in contributing to it as well. This is because the replacable surface of the flywheel is not flat. They are never flat. The high spots between the little bolts contact the segments (pucks) of the disc and smooth engagement is going to be very difficult to achieve. A solid flywheel will engage smoother but still not what I would consider streetable. I would consider more of a street setup unless you are making some crazy torque numbers. What you have is what normally goes into 8 second drag cars like Ray Lochhead's!

ACTman

???? Clutches are designed to slip, especially the puck discs. Actually it is better to break in a puck disc by slipping it under pretty high load, especially on our older friction material. If you are too gentle the pucks don't lap in and just remain rough and cause more wear to the flywheel. But if the flywheel is getting eaten by the pucks, it's a lousy flywheel. Some of the flywheels out there use really soft surfaces like just plain jane 1018 steel or something that doesn't put up to agressive materials.

buttsjim

[QUOTE=ACTman]Springs have nothing to do with chatter (shudder). Actually a spring centered disc tends to make chatter worse. What causes the chatter is the higher friction. Chatter only occurs because when combined with flexible mounts, the engine tends to wind up in it's mounts as the higher friction clutch material occilates from slipping to grabbing. With solid mounts there is no chatter even with the most aggressive discs because there is no windup affect. On the other hand springs in the disc tends to increase the windup and therefore increase chatter.QUOTE]

Then, why have springs? Don't springs store energy? Energy that would otherwise be transferred to the drivetrain, increasing windup? Wouldn't that energy be released as torque being applied to the disc material is decreasing, thereby smoothing the on/off effects of the clutch grabbing/releasing that you described? Is there some sort of hysterisis (sp) effect? Why is it that heavy duty clutches with stiffer springs produce more judder/chatter/shudder that more softly sprung discs.

Everything else you say makes sense, and you apparently have expertise. So (with all due respect), maybe you can explain the intended role of the springs, and why they increase windup.

RETed

Who the **** are you???
Sorry to be so abrasive, but that's some of the most bullshit I've seen in a LONG time.

Do you work for ACT???

Copper puck clutches are NOT meant to be slipped.

Copper puck clutches do NOT need a break-in.

Where are you getting this bullshit from???


-Ted

ACTman

The main reason for springs in a factory disc is to absorb torsional vibrations (rotational pulses) that are generated by the engine. These torsional vibrations cause the gears to rattle primarily when not under load which is noisy. Springs in the disc (or flywheel in the case of a dual mass flywheel) dampen these pulses and reduce or eliminate the noise associated with it.
You have to understand what chatter is to understand why springs can (not always) make it worse. Chatter is the engine moving back and forth from having rubber mounts, as the clutch is trying to engage. The higher friction of puck clutches makes the engagement "rough" to put it simply and with flexible mounts, you get chatter by the engine bouncing in the mounts. If you have solid mounts, the "wind up" is gone and therefore chatter is gone. By putting springs in the clutch you basically are allowing wind up on the other end and therefore increase the chatter.
Feel free to email me for more information at dstarksen@advancedclutch.com.

buttsjim

^
Thanks for your answer. I understand about limiting windup in the drivetrain, and used an engine torque brace to prevent that in my own car. Nevertheless, I remain unconvinced with your explanation of the clutch springs' effect.

I see them absorbing and storing energy under high torque loads, and releasing that energy when the torque load decreases, which should smooth out the windup effects. Also, I remember (30 years ago) seeing the old style chrome bumpers vibrating up and down on cars with clutch chatter. That tells me that the chatter is also on the parts of the drive train aft of the clutch, in addition to the engine. Springs would certainly smooth that effect.

ACTman

You crack me up, dude. Check out http://auto.howstuffworks.com/clutch1.htm. ALL clutches are meant to be slipped! That is the main purpose for a clutch in the first place: to SLIP as you are enagaging to get the care moving while the engine is already running or to smooth the transition to the next gear. Why else would there be friction material in the first place. Otherwise we would just just bolt the crankshaft to the transmission shaft and use some sort of dog to instantly engage the gear, similar to a sprint car (they get push started).

Besides the benefits copper or other sintered materials of having high friction to hold more power, they also have high heat capacity. Where do you think the heat comes from... slipping! I used to say that puck clutches don't need a break in until we did some clutch testing on the dyno. We were measuring torque while the clutch is being slipped. We found that if the material is allowed to bed in a bit then more material made contact and it held more power.

To answer your other question, yeah, I work for ACT. You asked where am I getting this "BS" from? From 28 years in performance clutches, test results, race car experience, studying engineering data, but I still have a lot to learn. It is sometimes difficult to explain things in a few paragraphs on a public forum but that doesn't mean it is BS.