First off, I want to give kudos to Summit Racing and Ram Clutches for outstanding customer support re problems I had with a 1550/910/402 setup. This is a race setup and they did not have to warranty the setup, but they did without any hassle.

The 910 setup disintegrated after 3 dyno runs (best pull was 389 rwhp with a slightly slipping clutch) following a 650 break-in period. It looked like the flywheel side of the 910 was ground down to nothing while the pplate side was normal. One thing I noticed following the install was that the clutch seemed to have very little if any free play. I have an adjustable mc and regardless of the rod length, the free play was not there. This may have caused the clutch to have slippage from the day it was installed. However, it worked fine on the street during the break-in period.

The replacement setup, this time a 980 disc per Mike N's recommendation, arrived and I made some measurements using a stock setup as reference.
The 1550 flywheel measured .820, stock was .793
Installed height of the 402's fingers was 3.260, stock setup was 3.130.
Hmmm, .130 is not an insignificant amount. Possibly causing a reduction in free play. So, I decided to reduce the installed height of the Ram setup by leveling off the ends of the fingers; grinding the ends so the mating surfaces were flat in relation to the t/o bearing. Then I polished the surfaces with emory cloth. This brought the installed height down to within .010 of the stock setup. I also believed that the flatter, polished surfaces of the finger tips would smooth the engagement compared to the original configuration which has sharp right angle surfaces contacting the t/o bearing. The sharp surfaces caused some scuffing marks on the new 145 slave t/o bearing. I replaced the t/o bearing.

The new setup, with the manicure mod, had generous free play and a very smooth engagement compared with the previous setup. After 50 miles so far, I am pleased with the results.

 

That is something interesting stuff. I've never heard of the manicure mod. I wonder if my setup could be suffering from the same thing. I am thinking I need to flush the fluid from the master/slave. My TO bearing squeals and my engagement point keeps getting closer to the floor and I keep having to adjust the master up. I am wondering if there is a thickness issue. It is a Mcleod kevlar and came with its own flywheel. Did you have issues like this?

Chris

 

Yer thinking here Brother J! Actually your measurments are right on, and this is another reason the VDS can be advantageous over buying the components. The shims used with that setup would allow you to set the finger heights exactly back to stock without the 'manicure' mod. But you get an A for figuring this out - I've not seen anyone else do it on here.

Setting the fingers to stock height would also eliminate the need for the adjustable master, but as the disc wears you would have to maintain this setting if release position was to stay constant.
<img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" />

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that before doing the "manicure mod" you should soak the fingers in Palmolive. Remember the stupid commercials with Madge, the manicurist? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="gr_grin.gif" />

On a serious note Mike, I am guessing that the shims used in the VDS setup are placed between the pplate and the flywheel? That would be a more precise method to set the finger height, fer sure. I like the feel of the polished finger tips, though. Wonder if Ram might not want to go the extra step to round off/slick up the finger tips?

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by p99ta:
<strong>That is something interesting stuff. I've never heard of the manicure mod. I wonder if my setup could be suffering from the same thing. I am thinking I need to flush the fluid from the master/slave. My TO bearing squeals and my engagement point keeps getting closer to the floor and I keep having to adjust the master up. I am wondering if there is a thickness issue. It is a Mcleod kevlar and came with its own flywheel. Did you have issues like this?

Chris</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Chris, I never had any noise from the t/o bearing with the first setup and the engagement position remained the same. 'Course, it was only on for 650 miles. I would advise checking the installed height on every non-stock clutch setup to see where it is relative to the stock measurement.