When I first got the clutch there were washers between the flywheel and plate or disc I cant remember. In the instruction they said for street driving take them out. We verified this with RAM. The clutch slips at high RMP shifting and the pedal sticks to floor. This is only at high RPM shifting and the rest of the time its fine. After talking to RAM again they said I should of kept the shim things in there and thats my problem. Can anybody verify this?

<small>[ July 26, 2002, 07:53 AM: Message edited by: 9T9BlueTA ]</small>

 

Contact Mike at Rapid Motorsports. www.rapidmotorsports.com

or mike@rapidmotorsports.com

He installs these clutches a lot.

 

Mike is out of town - you might not reach him until monday...

 

I can tell you this....I talked to Mike from Rapid Motorsports this week and he told me he leaves the shims in normally. He has never seen the instructions that RAM sends with the VDS clutch that tell you to remove all the shims. I took the shims out on my install based on the RAM instructions and I didn't have any problems. I would contact RAM (Mike Norcia specifically)directly and find out for sure what he suggests.

 

I didn't notice any shims upon install or instructions stating to do so. I DID have instructions that say to take an 1/8" off the slave spring before installing, and nobody was able to verify that one ( on the boards, not Mike ).

 

Cam M this is what Mike Norcia told me to do. I already took the trans apart 2 twice now to change dics as I though it was the weaker 300 series slipping. It does the same thing with the 6130 and I dont want to do this a fourth time so I wanted to know what was going on.

 

OK, lemme try and explain this. The cause of sticking diaphragms is when the fingers are travelled bellow the center line of their plane of rotation <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

Think of it like this. If the fingers go past center, at higher RPM the centrifugal force acting on the levers will try and pull them inward, based on their angle. Ideally, any clutch should disengage before this center point. Different units have different installed heights. Thats why the factory clutches are a problem!

By installing the clutch without shims, the fingers are in a lower position, and it is nearly impossible to get full release without travelling them below this center line. Using the shims keeps the levers higher to avoid this problem.

The shims are designed to allow you to maintain the clutch as the disc wears. The thinner the disc gets, the more the levers move back and the morer the static load on the clutch is reduced. Removing shims at this point restores the static to its original level.

Another bonus of this adjustability is being able to reduce the static load in a race application, if the clutch hits too hard...

Everyone <img border="0" alt="[boring]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_zzz.gif" /> yet?

 

Makes sense, Mike, thanks for posting.

<small>[ July 27, 2002, 07:51 AM: Message edited by: CamM ]</small>

 

Mike, motor is at Alan's, just about ready for that disk <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="gr_images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Stick only:
<strong>OK, lemme try and explain this. The cause of sticking diaphragms is when the fingers are travelled bellow the center line of their plane of rotation <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

Think of it like this. If the fingers go past center, at higher RPM the centrifugal force acting on the levers will try and pull them inward, based on their angle. Ideally, any clutch should disengage before this center point. Different units have different installed heights. Thats why the factory clutches are a problem!

By installing the clutch without shims, the fingers are in a lower position, and it is nearly impossible to get full release without travelling them below this center line. Using the shims keeps the levers higher to avoid this problem.

The shims are designed to allow you to maintain the clutch as the disc wears. The thinner the disc gets, the more the levers move back and the morer the static load on the clutch is reduced. Removing shims at this point restores the static to its original level.

Another bonus of this adjustability is being able to reduce the static load in a race application, if the clutch hits too hard...

Everyone <img border="0" alt="[boring]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_zzz.gif" /> yet?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yup that is exactly what ya told me on the phone <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="gr_grin.gif" /> Mike. I didnt know you were a member her lol this is great. Now I can show this to my friend who helps me do the tranny and he doenst have to talk to you. I tried to explain it the way you told me but really screwed it up, he was like <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> .

Mike, I am curious as to why the instructions that came with the VDS clutch said remove the shims for a street application? Also does this mean that as the clutch wear I have to take the shims out? (that would suck)

Thanks again for posting this info <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" /> .

<small>[ July 27, 2002, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: 9T9BlueTA ]</small>

 

To be honest, I think you got a very early kit before we knew all the potential problems that these cars could run into. In a mechanical linkage car it doesn't matter where the fingers are because you can set the release point easily and keep from overcentering. Hydraulics are much more finicky about setup.

Java, let me know when <img border="0" alt="[Burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" />

<small>[ July 28, 2002, 06:16 AM: Message edited by: Stick only ]</small>