Clutch problems Anyone?

Cody Smith · Post by **Cody Smith** » March 8th, 2003, 6:37 am

Well tonight we pull out my friends ACT on his 98 itr. The thing was gone. I am talking full friction disk destruction. The entire outer half was gone on both sides, the metal wings in center are warped, and there was a ton of debry in the bell housing. He babies it for the most part and it has only been in for 4 months. It is a street/strip I believe. Any ideas, or simular problems?

TypeR00_0371 · Post by **TypeR00_0371** » March 8th, 2003, 3:15 pm

ya, was the inside of your housing brown?

my HDR6 shaved a lb off the flywheel

ACT = riceboy clutch

I'm a big fan of Clutchmasters...

Post by **Jan Niemi** » March 9th, 2003, 12:58 pm

I think your buddy was part of ACT's learning curve. Hopefully in the future they will provide better quality. I have an ACT on my Talon, not that great. I use the CM stage 3 in my turbo ITR, and I love it.

Erik B · Post by **Erik B** » March 9th, 2003, 10:34 pm

ACT= rice boy? WTF does that mean? How does having a ACT CLUTCH have anything to do with being a rice boy? I have a ACT clutch in my car and love it. Haven't had it to long so I can't recomend it to anyone but that "riceboy" comment just killed me. Care to post any pics of your non riceboy car?

TypeR00_0371 · Post by **TypeR00_0371** » March 10th, 2003, 2:24 pm

Erik B wrote:ACT= rice boy? WTF does that mean? How does having a ACT CLUTCH have anything to do with being a rice boy? I have a ACT clutch in my car and love it. Haven't had it to long so I can't recomend it to anyone but that "riceboy" comment just killed me. Care to post any pics of your non riceboy car?

IMO: ACT clutches suck ass.... That's from experience, and not just on my car. For a little extra $ you can go w/ a clutchmasters that offers more diversity, better drivability, and again IMO a better overall product. What I mean by the Riceboy comment, is that shops (I Being a shop owner) have a higher profit margin on the ACT than the Clutchmasters, therefore, they tend to PUSH a product that (don't get mad) IMO will be more hurtful than helpful.

Also, from what I have heard ACT used to be a good product... Maybe all of my oppinions expressed are from a revamping period, when a GROWING Company is trying to STREAMLINE..... But, you know what they say about first impressions..........

Post by **Trey** » March 10th, 2003, 3:06 pm

I think there is a lot of POOR info in this thread.

I can say I had an Exedy clutch go south on my recently. Do all exedy's suck? porbably not. Will I buy another? No time soon.

In regards to ACT, they have actually made a lot of changes over the last 2 years. They used to have a lot of failures with disc material separation. Without knowing ture and exact history it is hard for anyone to pass true judgement.

That being said I did a lot of hard and dirty research on clutchs. Guess what I found as an overwhelming majority of suggestions from those pleased with their clutches. ACT! Clucthmasters has a fair rating from people in the Type-R community but ACT came highly recomended by people using them. I looked for failure rates on our cars and found them to be below the others considering how many more people seem to be using ACT than Clutchmasters or the like.

I can't say i am offended but I do think calling a clutch brand "rice boy" sort of presents a short mindedness. They make a performance part that based on my research holds up and since the part is not seen and performance of it matters I don't see how this is a fair or true statement.

I am not saying no ACT's fail but I would challenge anyone that is willing to get on here and try to claim that theye is a clutch company that has zero failures.

Check on the history of the clutch . .. it was 4 months old but what was the manufacturing date? He might baby it 98% of the time but it takes one abusive move to tear it up. Try and find the cause of the problem. If the ACT went south on him Try something else and share that with us. It is all about knowledge. And for the record I would not try the Exedy Organic kit or buy ANYTHING from Cox Imports.

Trey

bbqman · Post by **bbqman** » March 10th, 2003, 6:12 pm

Thanks for the insight Trey and most probably averting another clutch war.
It is quite obvious that many variables come in to play when discussing the pros and cons of a specific brand of clutch.
Relating your experience with a given products, minus the off-color remarks, is much more helpful to the members.

Aj · Post by Aj » March 10th, 2003, 6:31 pm

Just to add to the record, I have an Exedy clutch, and though I'm not sure it's the clutch, I'm starting to have problems with a tranny that's less than two months old, and actually, after just breaking an eagle rod, I'm looking at some down time any way, and a good opportunity to remove my tranny and see what's going on. I'm hoping it's the clutch, and actually, I've had a lot of bad experiences with ACT in the past, of course, for about the last year and a half, we havn't used ACT, so I can't speak for their current products. As far as Exedy goes, if this clutch went bad with only 1500 miles on it, I'll be pretty teed off!!!!! Especially if it fucked up my tranny along with it.

On a side note for Trey, the luck we've had with Cusco and Tilton clutches has been unheard of, then again, for 1300 bucks, at a minimum, I guess that should be expected. I have at previous had a clutchmasters clutch in my car that I was very happy with, and had no complaints, of course then again, you never know, every company has it's failures, you just have to hope it's not on your car....

Later,
Aj