Jacks Transmissions Forums

Hi.
As soon as I can man up and work in the cold carhole I'll get my tranny pulled and down to you for its rebuild.

I was going to use an ACT2900/solid street disk/Fidanza combo, and after spending 2 solid days on teh interwebs people seem to be zeroing in on using the Southbend kevlar disk with either the 2900 or the Southbend SS pressure plate. The idea of a solid disk scares me a little, only because I've never driven one and I don't have the experience to know if using it daily will rattle my nerves with noise or engagement issues.

So, has anyone given you any reports on either the kevlar TZ disk, or the the Southbend SS? I've already got a replacement surface for my Fidanza, so I'll be using that.

I'm assuming that I need to get new flywheel bolts, and not reuse the existing ones? they're the longer bolts with the steel spacer.

-Scott Y

I'm not a big fan of kevlar disks. I played with one in a Conquest and on my GVR4 and it slipped in both of them. Have one in my daily and it also slips when I launch the car. It was worse than the OEM Mitsu disk I had in there at the time.

Kevlar is great for a stock car as they live a long time, but on a car at the level yours is sitting they just don't seem to perform. One thing I noticed is when I launch on it the first 2 or 3 times it holds, but then after that it will slip. It would get so bad that it would start to slip just from the engines torque when the turbo hit boost, so forget about a launch anymore. They don't seem to care for the heat. Once the car cooled down for a few hours, it was fine again. Had to do the clutch over again in both the Conquest and GVR4 which totally sucked and left me a little sour about kevlar. I have a totally stock daily with a kevlar disk in it now too and it's great unless I decide to launch more than 2 times, then it sucks again. I hate that damn thing...

I never did play with a South Bend clutch though, so maybe it's different with them. I remember over 10 years ago a friend figured out how to modify SHO clutch pressure plates so they would live through more abusive driving. A lot of people were sending him their pressure plates for modification. South Bend copied what he did but didn't do it right which caused them to fail. I remember my friend stating, "Copying my design is a form of flattery, but at least fucking do it right". I would assume with the reviews the DSM World is giving them now though that they might be better than they were 10 years ago, but I guess I won't know until I see one of their units.

My only issue is holding power. If it can hold what you have after a few launches everything else should be fine. Maybe it would be worth the time to give South Bend a call and ask for their thoughts about what you have and see what they say about possible slipping issues at the track.

Jack

I'll give SB a shout. I've got a few PMs to other folks that have them, i'll let you know. This would be a lot easier if there were only 2 clutches available for DSMs instead of 50.

Well, I'm officially a guinea pig. SBC swears that their SS plate + TZ disk will handle 500tq, and their SS-X plate + TZ disk will handle 600. With durability and streetability. So I ordered it yesterday, and we'll see if there exists a single plate clutch that has it all: a light pedal, durability, launchability, and high rpm shifting.

I have the Southbend Kevlar disc in my car and so far I love it. Slips very very smoothly and grabs hard when I want it. Mine is sprung, though I have never heard of the unsprung version. I use an ACT 2600 pressure plate with a OEM flywheel stepped to .610 as well. I havn't launched the car at all with it yet though. I've put a lot of hard HARD highway runs on the clutch though and it holds solid with my 450-470ish hp. Tim Zimmer swears by them as he had his for a long time around the 650ish whp level and never had a problem with his slipping IIRC.