My clutch install with parts/sponsor reviews.
01-04-2006, 10:39 AM
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My clutch install with parts/sponsor reviews. Just sharing my latest clutch install with the board that has helped me so much over the past few years.
Parts installed:
centerforce dual friction clutch & pressure plate.
Ram adjustable master cylinder
Ram high flow slave cylinder with throwout bearing
ram billet steel flywheel
GM pilot bearing
Also drilled out the hydraulic line between the master & slave cylinders
My car is an 01 transam with 50k miles on it. The day I bought the car new, I took it to a friends shop. Subframe connectors were welded in & a centerforce dual friction clutch & pressure plate were installed. The stock flywheel was not re-surfaced and was used. All factory hydraulics were used. My hydraulics have always been weak. If I would press the clutch pedal to the floor & rev my engine past 4k rpm in gear, my car would start to push forward & the smell of burning clutch would become apparent. In general my pedal was roughly twice as hard to push as stock. I've never had my car at the track & in general I'm not a big on burnouts so none of this was ever a problem. The clutch itself still bit like a pitbull over it's entire life, never slipping while engaged. The clutch disc itself probably had another 50k miles worth of friction material. The flywheel & pressure plate had very apparent hotspots however. I changed the clutch because when warmed up, the clutch would not completely disengage. After getting under the car, it turns out the exhaust flange between the cat & mailfod had warped, the gasket failed, & it was blowing hot exhaust directly on the hydraulic line. Gave me an excuse to put on some headers
Here's a thread I made detailing more on the old clutch with lots of pics https://ls1tech.com/forums/manual-transmission/425304-centerforce-after-50k-miles-lots-pics.html
My opinion on the centerforce df. I liked it enough to buy a second one. I think it's a great clutch. Centerforce has always had great customer service which is a big thing in my book. In addition, it's nice that centerforce has a showing on this message board which also goes a long way. One complaint, quit painting them! The orange isn't that pretty, and it just flakes off and makes a mess later anyway.
The ram master cylinder is also a nice piece. I can't go into how great the build is since I didn't take it apart or anything, but a solid piece that was pretty identical looking to stock. It is very nice having the ability to adjust it & I would suggest this piece to anyone. Although It isn't skating by with a perfect score. The rod end was a too large to slide far enough on the clutch pedal assembly to get the retainers clip back on. So the rod end had a coming to Jesus meeting with my angle die grinder and eventually found enough religion to get the retainer clip back on.
The ram slave cylinder was also a solid piece. Comparing to the old stock one, it seemed to have larger/better seals, but I wasn't about to take it apart to see if it really flowed more like the high flow name implied. Now the throw out bearing was clearly larger, with more surface area. Also unlike the stock bearing with a flat edged surface, the ram had rounded off edges.
The ram flywheel. . what the heck can I tell you about a solid steel piece with the naked eye. It was shiney & pretty & new, so I was happy. One draw back, there were no alignment dowels in or shipped with the flywheel. My clutch made it very clear with several little warnings in the box that these dowels were highly suggested to have in place. So after putting my old flywheel in the freezer the old dowels popped right out, & right in to the new flywheel. Overall I like my flywheel.
The Gm pilot bearing is the devil, but I had to have one, bought it from a local dealer, moving on.
So i did the drill mod. It was easy. I connected the line to my old slave cylinder to open up the line. I put fluid in through the bleeder valve & used my air compressor behind the fluid to clean out the line.
My bleeding method:
My tool of choice was my handy mity vac purchased from the local oriely's.
I put the hose from the mity with a long skinny tip in the hole at the bottom of the clutch fluid resovior. With the bleeder valve on the slave closed, I created some vaccum. I filled the resovior up around the mity hose, then pulled the hose out. The vaccum sucked the fluid right down into the system. I did this a few times until the resovoir quit going empty after each mity hose pull. Then one more time I created a vaccum of 25psi left it there fow a few minutes watched the bubbles come up, pulled it out, done. Not one drop of fluid spilled. In a few days, I plan to mity vac it one more time just to get any last little bubbles.
So My overall impressions; I got a little too eager on my master adjustment. I will have to shorten the throw a little. My pedal wants to travel further than the master wants to move. And the pedal disengagement point is higher than it should be. But that's the joy of having an adjustable anything, the user has the ability to screw it up. Now we all know that putting in a new clutch causes one to do a little re-learning on driving. In my case that is a huge understatement. Like I said earlier,before, my pedal was twice as stiff as the aveage stock pedal. Now my pedal is so easy to push down, it's like driving a civic. It is so foriegn to me. My pedal is easier to push than stock by far. It's not spongy, it comes all the way up when not pushed down with no hesitation. I thought at first my bleeding method had failed me. But, after driving the car, everything worked great! I just can't stress enough how easy it is to push my pedal down.
I trusted ram & centerforce claims that their equipment was all balanced. So I did not take any of it to a shop to have balanced. I was a little nervous about this since I added the dowels to my flyhweel. After talking to a few different tranny shops, They all said I was overly **** about it & I would be fine after adding the dowels. I am happy to report that I have no vibations or rattles, so yea for me.
I purchased all of this stuff from new era performance parts. Good pricing, good customer service, & great shipping. I'm glad they're a sponsor here.
I didn't put this together one new piece at a time, so I can't give a review on any one part individually. But all parts combined, it's a great setup. I hope this helps someone in here. I know if it was not for this message board, It would have been much harder & probably more expensive for me to do this.
So thanks ls1tech
Parts installed:
centerforce dual friction clutch & pressure plate.
Ram adjustable master cylinder
Ram high flow slave cylinder with throwout bearing
ram billet steel flywheel
GM pilot bearing
Also drilled out the hydraulic line between the master & slave cylinders
My car is an 01 transam with 50k miles on it. The day I bought the car new, I took it to a friends shop. Subframe connectors were welded in & a centerforce dual friction clutch & pressure plate were installed. The stock flywheel was not re-surfaced and was used. All factory hydraulics were used. My hydraulics have always been weak. If I would press the clutch pedal to the floor & rev my engine past 4k rpm in gear, my car would start to push forward & the smell of burning clutch would become apparent. In general my pedal was roughly twice as hard to push as stock. I've never had my car at the track & in general I'm not a big on burnouts so none of this was ever a problem. The clutch itself still bit like a pitbull over it's entire life, never slipping while engaged. The clutch disc itself probably had another 50k miles worth of friction material. The flywheel & pressure plate had very apparent hotspots however. I changed the clutch because when warmed up, the clutch would not completely disengage. After getting under the car, it turns out the exhaust flange between the cat & mailfod had warped, the gasket failed, & it was blowing hot exhaust directly on the hydraulic line. Gave me an excuse to put on some headers
Here's a thread I made detailing more on the old clutch with lots of pics https://ls1tech.com/forums/manual-transmission/425304-centerforce-after-50k-miles-lots-pics.htmlMy opinion on the centerforce df. I liked it enough to buy a second one. I think it's a great clutch. Centerforce has always had great customer service which is a big thing in my book. In addition, it's nice that centerforce has a showing on this message board which also goes a long way. One complaint, quit painting them! The orange isn't that pretty, and it just flakes off and makes a mess later anyway.
The ram master cylinder is also a nice piece. I can't go into how great the build is since I didn't take it apart or anything, but a solid piece that was pretty identical looking to stock. It is very nice having the ability to adjust it & I would suggest this piece to anyone. Although It isn't skating by with a perfect score. The rod end was a too large to slide far enough on the clutch pedal assembly to get the retainers clip back on. So the rod end had a coming to Jesus meeting with my angle die grinder and eventually found enough religion to get the retainer clip back on.
The ram slave cylinder was also a solid piece. Comparing to the old stock one, it seemed to have larger/better seals, but I wasn't about to take it apart to see if it really flowed more like the high flow name implied. Now the throw out bearing was clearly larger, with more surface area. Also unlike the stock bearing with a flat edged surface, the ram had rounded off edges.
The ram flywheel. . what the heck can I tell you about a solid steel piece with the naked eye. It was shiney & pretty & new, so I was happy. One draw back, there were no alignment dowels in or shipped with the flywheel. My clutch made it very clear with several little warnings in the box that these dowels were highly suggested to have in place. So after putting my old flywheel in the freezer the old dowels popped right out, & right in to the new flywheel. Overall I like my flywheel.
The Gm pilot bearing is the devil, but I had to have one, bought it from a local dealer, moving on.
So i did the drill mod. It was easy. I connected the line to my old slave cylinder to open up the line. I put fluid in through the bleeder valve & used my air compressor behind the fluid to clean out the line.
My bleeding method:
My tool of choice was my handy mity vac purchased from the local oriely's.
I put the hose from the mity with a long skinny tip in the hole at the bottom of the clutch fluid resovior. With the bleeder valve on the slave closed, I created some vaccum. I filled the resovior up around the mity hose, then pulled the hose out. The vaccum sucked the fluid right down into the system. I did this a few times until the resovoir quit going empty after each mity hose pull. Then one more time I created a vaccum of 25psi left it there fow a few minutes watched the bubbles come up, pulled it out, done. Not one drop of fluid spilled. In a few days, I plan to mity vac it one more time just to get any last little bubbles.
So My overall impressions; I got a little too eager on my master adjustment. I will have to shorten the throw a little. My pedal wants to travel further than the master wants to move. And the pedal disengagement point is higher than it should be. But that's the joy of having an adjustable anything, the user has the ability to screw it up. Now we all know that putting in a new clutch causes one to do a little re-learning on driving. In my case that is a huge understatement. Like I said earlier,before, my pedal was twice as stiff as the aveage stock pedal. Now my pedal is so easy to push down, it's like driving a civic. It is so foriegn to me. My pedal is easier to push than stock by far. It's not spongy, it comes all the way up when not pushed down with no hesitation. I thought at first my bleeding method had failed me. But, after driving the car, everything worked great! I just can't stress enough how easy it is to push my pedal down.
I trusted ram & centerforce claims that their equipment was all balanced. So I did not take any of it to a shop to have balanced. I was a little nervous about this since I added the dowels to my flyhweel. After talking to a few different tranny shops, They all said I was overly **** about it & I would be fine after adding the dowels. I am happy to report that I have no vibations or rattles, so yea for me.
I purchased all of this stuff from new era performance parts. Good pricing, good customer service, & great shipping. I'm glad they're a sponsor here.
I didn't put this together one new piece at a time, so I can't give a review on any one part individually. But all parts combined, it's a great setup. I hope this helps someone in here. I know if it was not for this message board, It would have been much harder & probably more expensive for me to do this.
So thanks ls1tech
