Car's fixed and ready for pickup. Stock clutch back in and while talking to the tech he corrected himself and said it was definitely the concentric secondary cylinder.

I am getting back the JWT clutch (obviously) and the technician said that he included everything to give back to me including the CSC. I will post up some pics tomorrow and see if I can get this thing into the hands of someone if they need it for R&D purposes in order to engineer an aftermarket piece/part.

You da man!

You have PM.

:tup::tup:

PM replied!

Great to Hear the Bee's going Home!

Ugh.. me too. And as a little treat to the bee... new Challenge coilovers going on as well as that Seibon NS-style carbon fiber front lip! :woot:

So the failure of the Concentric Slave Cylinder (CSC) basically caused the Clutch Master Clyinder to give out and spill all the fluid then?

I guess that's the verdict.

So I got my car back with stock clutch back in place (which feels like there's nothing there ugh :icon14:) and the tech didn't put the damn failed CSC in the car. WTF? I got the aftermarket clutch back but he said he would give me the failed parts. I was looking forward to taking some pics for you guys and getting them into the hands of an aftermarket vendor but no dice.

I put a call in to get the CSC but he still hasn't returned my call yet. :shakes head:

:mad:

Tell me about it! I'm going to call and hound him tomorrow to get my hands on the part/s. I paid for them when I bought the car and I want them back.

well i had a second one lying around so i tore it the hell apart today and from what i can see it doesn't look good for the french. the csc is a metal can that snaps into a plastic base (tis a pain to get apart) either way that plastic base is really brittle and so is the plastic piston (yup this beeyotch puts hundreds of pounds of force on a small plastic ring that looks like small piece of prepreg nylon about a half inch long with a seal molded to one end). The bearing is snapped onto the plastic piston and held in place with a tiny metal ring. but the main thing i noticed is that i had only 9,000 miles on this thing and while it was still working when i took it out, after removing the metal sleeve from the base i found a film of clutch fluid all over the inside where it shouldn't be so my guess is it was seeping past the O-ring in the base.

The thing is injection molded so because some of the features are hard to machine it looks i'll have to make a few changes to it for the new one. I can't wait to put the clutch and flywheel back in.

Is this why clutch play gets worse over time? So far it's hovering around 1-2" instead of nothing when it was brand new.

from what i see the whole assembly is just plain bad and i don't have the slightest clue why the they would do this other than corporate resource sharing with renault and bureaucratic cost savings contracts with the valeo company (in france). after the problems with the hr engines you would figure they would do a redesign and throw the plastic POS out but no, they probably just upgraded the grade of pre-preg and called it a day. the other thing i noticed is that the csc has the fluid dampening restrictions built into it that is very likely the cause of many of the slipping clutches, and stuck disengagement problems as well i wish i could remember who it was that was at the track and his clutch got stuck to the floor cause this is for him. there is a tiny little oriface that actually feeds the fluid in and out of the piston. they make it supper small so that while clutch disengagement remains normal due to the high pressure as the clutch is engaging this tiny hole causes the clutch to slip due to slowing down the fluid as it returns to the master cylinder. on the street this means smoother engagement for novice drivers, on the track shifting quickly this means extremely elevated line pressure right where the stupid tiny O-ring between the steel sleeve and the plastic housing is causing more stress on the CSC during disengagement, and a stuck or burning clutch on the engagement.

This is a very common problem on 98+ gm vehicles with the ls v8's, documented in a few magazines but luckily for them their CSC is an aluminum piece not plastic, and GM put the restriction in the clutch line not in the actual part sou could just drill out the restriction with an 1/8th inch drill bit and you never had problems again until the bearing failed.

Good info thanks for the post +1

Bump, Can you post pics of this assembly?

Wow, $hitty clutches and $hitty brakes, wat else is $hitty?

The doors. I'm getting my Miata doors next week. :icon17:

Sport brakes aren't bad imo. At least I haven't had any problems with 'em.

well, the ice mode for brakes kinda sucks. So back to clutch, so when we change clutch, we will need an aftermarket full metal CSC? what else will cause problems?
man, someone needs to design an aftermarket csc lol

i've pretty much gotten the new design i'm going with hammered out now i need a bit of tooling and time as well as finding a good shop in the area that can soldier the steel sleeve from the stock piece into my new base so there will be no o ring to worry about. I'm also going to change out to regular IF fittings so i need to get an adapter line made, and a top bleed line for easy clutch bleeding. It'll take a bit and i probably won't be able to make many of them as this is a sidejob for me. I wish i could work for a company like stillen.

As for a picture of all the parts they are in my toolbox at work so i can't get to them until monday and right now i'm trying to find the 20mm nut for my oil cooler kit around my house somwhere as a family member moved it the last time she was over without caring that it is a very hard to find piece.

We're going to be releasing our new flywheel and clutches along with the upgraded bearing and sleeve for CSC next week!

Pics Please! I might be ordering one asap

+1

I'll have pics Monday\Tuesday.

and prices

:iagree:

It's been 1200 miles and not one problem with Southbend's clutch/flywheel/pressure plate combo. I'm using a stock CSC with a bearing cover that works perfectly with the Southbend's offering.
370Z VHR South Bend DXD Clutch Kits for stock CSC

I'm using a Stage 4 clutch with the billet flywheel and it's performance has been flawless. I believe RCZ is also using this clutch/pressure plate combo with a lightened flywheel and has great success with a SC.

Unfortunately, Joe is not a vendor on here and not many people realize that 370Z owners have this option. He has also developed a all metal CSC that is in testing mode and should be available sometime next year.

Tell him where you heard it from and you may get a discount :tup:

please post a link!

retrack the linked order. first time I tried internet link had a fail

I think i am gonna order this

1200 miles? Brother, I had like 10,000 miles on my JWT combo + 2 track days. It's not a question of that particular setup not working. In fact, as per my first post, it worked flawlessly. It's not so much a matter of if but when the CSC decides to give.

That said, I'm sure your flywheel/clutch combo is a good one but that was never really the issue to begin with as it turns out.

I understand that the CSC failed on your setup with the JWT combo. I actually have one that I choose not to install and when I measured the stock CSC fitment on the JWT pressure plate I was appalled that anyone would install or recommend this pressure plate with the stock CSC. The fitment was that bad. It was obvious that it would fail, it was just a matter of when. I'm surprised that it lasted 10K miles. I had all sort of problems with my 07 350Z when I installed the JWT combo and at least now I understand why. I would recommend the bearing sleeve be installed with the JWT clutch combo as the alignment is much better.

This is why when the CSC bearing sleeve became available for the stock CSC, I checked into it and learned all sort of things. The more I researched, the more I realized the JWT combo was not for me. It was nice to actually find a company that researched and recommended a clutch setup for our cars that actually had real world testing behind it.

That being said, I do know that the stock CSC with the bearing sleeve may not be the final answer but at least it gives the stock CSC a fighting chance with proper alignment and spacing with the pressure plate fingers.
It will probably take years for me to find out as I only put around 5K miles per year on my car. By the time the CSC needs to be replaced, I'm hoping that a better replacement will be available.

I don't have a Southbend clutch on my Z but I used to run one on my (don't laugh) SRT4. It was a Southbend Stage 5 with an Steel Flywheel and it handled more than 10K miles of 448whp and 494lbs tq. Never had a problem while autocrossing either...of course I dialed the boost way back. Clutch never let up on multiple 11.8xx passes at 120+mph.

I just wanted to add a little input on the SBC and say they are really great.

Thanks for added + to the clutch, I plan to order one next month

It's Tuesday, where are my pics?

thanks for the heads up, now i know what i should do when i eventually replace my stock clutch.

ever since my clutch master cylinder went out and was replaced under warranty... i've been afraid to really get on the gas in fear of it breaking again. search for the other thread for more info, i wasn't the only one that was affected.

A little patience never hurt anybody. ;)

We're working on machining out the last bit on the bearing adapter.
Here's some pics of our flywheel and clutch to tide you over.

For those curious on our newest clutch design check this post:
http://specialtyz.com/blog/?p=45

Also some info on clutch disc weights:
http://specialtyz.com/blog/?p=481

http://www.specialtyz.com/images/z34...heelweight.jpg

http://www.specialtyz.com/images/z34...mblyweight.jpg

http://www.specialtyz.com/images/z34...heelweight.jpg

http://www.specialtyz.com/images/z34...mblyweight.jpg

http://www.specialtyz.com/images/z34...linstalled.jpg

http://www.specialtyz.com/images/z34...cinstalled.jpg

http://www.specialtyz.com/images/z34...yinstalled.jpg

Its looking good, but I still want more lol

Yeah i'm starting to think it's less of an alignment problem that is causing the high failure rate. it may be a factor but given that stock clutches are screwing up the csc's it probably has more to do with the much higher spring rate. the stock csc is designed to be sluggish as well, and if you took one apart and looked at all the plastic and the $hity little o ring that is supposed to hold back all that pressure it's no wonder their popping like drunk girls after prom.

I agree the CSC isn't designed to handle any kind of major higher spring rate on a pressure plate and the O-ring will eventually fail. My expectation is that the stock CSC will fail in my install and I'll have to replace it. I just hope something better will be available when that happens.