You might have heard me bichen about clutch slippage these past few months - well they finally pulled it today and guess what - apparently its a bad flywheel. Were going to see if clutchmasters will warrenty it (they better!). Put it in last April with AWE stage 3 UG. Broke it in corectly adn I drive it hard - but nothing to cause it to burn out prematurley - no dumps or such nor do i ride it or normally allow it to slip or do anything overly harsh. Well it slipped just a few times last summer - just a bit...but once the cold weather set in (January-February-March...December was warm & mild) well it slipped whenI was in 4th & 5th gear and throttle down to pass and such. Definatly worse the colder it was and gradually got worse over time. My thinking is that the car was making more HP/torque in the cool weather...and the damaged (don't know exactly whats the issue) flywheel seems like its the culprit. My mechanic says the clutch plate & assembly itself is OK (but hes putting a new one in anyway and sending all the old stuff back to Clutchmasters)...but man almost undrivable these recent cold mornings...then clamps like a champ in the (warm) afternoons....very weird indeed. Anyway possibly will get it back tomorrow...but its break in the clutch time again...maybe a road trip is in order!

Also got new 19" RS4 replicas (from Hartman) on it...mannn - sweet! I'm really digging the new wheels. Perhaps I'll clean up the car and take afew pics....(probably in a few weeks - rain comming up and I'll be out of town a bit)...anyway can't wait to be fully functional again (after break in). Even with the slippage i managed to majorly dust a (few years old) Cobra the other day! Yeah warm afternoons I'm ***** to the wall...cool mornings it takes me forever just to baby it up to 30-40 mph...it was really that bad and that night & day...If for some reason it fails again they want to go with an RS4 (self adjusting) clutchplate with Clutchmaster flywheel and disc...anyone ever here of this combo? My mechanic says the clutchmaster lwfw is a beaut as are some of the other components - but he lkes the RS4 clutchplate better....any comments or opinions? Is Vast or anyone else any different/better?

 

Well new clutch installed and working well - now in babying break in period. Turns out my flywheel was OK - it was the springs in the clutch plate that were the problem. Clutch disc itself had very little wear - was almost like new...so clearly was a defect and not my doing...its also a relief to me as I feared and my shop was advocating that Clutchmaster Stage 3 just might not have been strong enough to handle my car's power...but since others seem to be doing fine with it i was wondering what the problem was...now I know...hope new one holds up better...