I have like 2k miles on my southbend stage 4 and it works flawlessly. Knock on wood.

Seb, any chatter on that flywheel? My JWT weighs in at 16 lbs. but chatters like a mofo at stop lights etc.

It's to be expected I guess. And well worth the tradeoff of an added 5 whp on the dyno. No doubt yours will yield similar results.

Not much chatter or noise, being that ours is a little heavier we get away from alot of the noise.

I'll have pics of our bearing tonight.

Watching!

Nice. Can not wait!:tup:

Nice post and It looks good.

i had 2000 on my jwt and no issues until my thrust bearing died (oil cooler not clutch) and had to yank it

ATS seem to have run into the same problem re CSC failure

"After many trials and errors ,
ATS concluded the best way is to give up the CSC and use a withdrawal lever , the similar
activation system used for 350Z early model with DE motor."

Active Traction Service

http://www.ppi-ats.com/ATS%20350Z%20...utch%20web.pdf

ouch!
 

hey i was just reading your post

http://my350z.com/forum/engine-drive...voir-swap.html

My leg has been seriously damaged from this clutch kit and I am wondering what to do. I had it done at the nissan dealer since my used 03 had a bad tranny when i bought it from them. The clutch it stiff as **** and my gearhead friends agree with me (not always ie: your just being a pussy[usually mustang ***s]). Anyway, if their not following the steps that you list.... Any suggestions? Finding your post was a great find for me because I am about to build a case against that shop. If your steps were not followed exactly, would the clutch be stiff as hell?


Never buy a jwt clutch.... It will kill your leg

-Spencer

no offense dude and i can't say much for or against it but if you are blaming a clutch pedal for Screwing you up you have some rethinking to do there, i have a rebuilt left leg and 0 problems with the jwt clutch. you do more damages to your knee climbing a flight of stairs than pushing your clutch in a 50 times. you may have had preexisting muscle, cartilage, or tendon damage and the failure happened to coincide with your clutch change. Or if you are overweight/really tall, your joints can have considerably more stress put on them than someone who is 5.10 180lbs. Thats like a body builder suing his gym cuz his knee gave out in a squat.

Agreed. There can be many different factors that can irritate an existing or persistent problem. It's like slow said above, you probably did more damage walking up stairs but you wouldn't sue the establishment that housed the stairwell.

With that said, given your existing condition, it probably makes sense to remedy that with a lighter clutch or in your case, maybe the 7AT.

nah man manual for LIFE, if my knee ever goes doing this i'll rig up a stick to push the clutch with a stub lol

Now that's the spirit! Get it while you can because soon enough it will be all auto's and paddle shifters FTL

i have a minor update on my csc, i'm still halfway done, havent gotten anywhere after that thanks to many problems in my life/work schedule, so i'm saying F the whole R/d thing and looking into adapting the most awesome csc to ever grace a mid-am car into our setup, gotta make a few calls do, just a bit of machining and call it done and never worry about it again. the thing i'm worried about yet with the zspeed one is it appears to still have the same flimsy style piston in it whereas the one i'm looking at can actually be used to jack up a car wheel if you wanted to. It also promises less thrust bearing stress, and weighs less than .75 of a pound. the company also sells a full race clutch and flywheel set rated for over 500ftlbs. single disc and more for the multidisc(up to 4) that weighs under 20lbs for the whole flywheel, ringgear, clutch, and csc.

Standing by sir. :tup:

Thrust bearing stress comes from the clutch itself, not the slave. The csc itself has absolutely nothing to do with it.

These is nothing flimsy about the ZSpeed slave and has been in many cars for over a year now, It has been in a drift car for the entire life of a OS giken twin plate that does nothing but drift and is now on its second rebuild of that twin plate and still going strong.

actually the design of the bearing contact on the front of the slave cylinder can actually effect the force applied to the thrust bearing as well. due to lever shaped nature of pressure plate fingers the contact patch actually changes in size throughout the stroke of clutch engagement and different designs of bearing face and finger angle can cause side loads imparted to the clutch as you now need to actuate both the clutch itself and over come the these forces as well. the clutch imparts ZERO force on the thrust bearing, all of the axial pressure applied come from the throwout bearing overcoming friction and the spring force of the clutch in order to actuate it. Zspeed has done a good job with there upgraded (what looks to still be a valeo unit) csc as i'm sure it has no more problem with the o-ring in the base as the metal base probably doesn't distort as much as the plastic one did if there even is an o-ring anymore. But it seems to use the same bearing lock ring and plastic piston that the factory unit uses.

The company i am looking at makes multi-plate clutches, fly wheels, and hydraulic throwout bearings for many many full on drag cars, Midwest america series cars, formula 100 cars, and several other venues of professional racing, the parts are made entirely in the USA, and they don't carry the crazy upmarket prices you find on japanese parts. the factory CSC was like $260 from nissan, the one i'm looking at is full race forged and cnc machined aircraft grade aluminum and is proven to be damn near indestructible.

Any updates on the ultimate clutch set-up, and where to buy?

Ram, Tilton or MCloed?


Too make this simple, If you move the contact area of the bearing face in, of course the lever ratio would be lighter. The 370 or 350 isn't going to have thrust bearing issues regardless with the loads it is seeing with the heaviest of clutches made for them at this point. The bearing the ZSpeed slave uses is self centering, Probably what you think is a retainer, This means the bearing will center itself to reduce/eliminate any side loads.

You will change load applied very little by moving the finger contact area in, You can only go in so far and at this point it is as far in as in can safely be with a single disk clutch. At the most, a 1/4" in is all you can go.

You mention how the angle changes on the diaphragm spring during release, Do you realize how far the fingers actually move on a clutch to release it fully?
Have you set-up the stock system to find out how far it moves with a full pedal stroke? Do you know how much "Too Far" is so you don't damage the pressure plates?

There are no plastic parts in the ZSpeed slave, The bearing lock ring doesn't do anything once the slave is installed, All the bearing does is push on the bearing sleeve which on the Zspeed slave is steel, Not plastic.


ZSpeed now has a slave kit for the OS Giken clutches which in our opinion are the best multi plate clutches available. This set up already moves the finger contact area in as far as possible too offer a lighter pedal feel.

so you can confirm that the piston which is in the dead center of the csc and has a rubber seal at the back of it is made out of metal? there is an aluminium base that has a steel sleeve in it, the piston fits in this steel sleeve and is what the hydraulic fluid actually pushes on. In most Valeo CSC's the piston is plastic, then on top of the piston they mount the bearing, a tiny little diaphram spring, and the bearing retainer which has like 8 little fingers that snap through slots on the piston and hold the bearing onto the piston. then the zspeed csc gets glued to the bearing. I've actually posted photo's of the stock assembly dismantled i think they are in this thread somewhere.

Edit: also it's none of the companies you listed, i checked with them but all their hydraulic throwout bearings were way to tall. If they agree to make the parts for us and at a reasonable price i will throw it out there.

As for the distances not off the top of my head i know the factory clutch has just under a half inch of throw, and the setup height of the factory csc is right around 1.8 inch from tranny to pressure plate. I have extra clutch and flywheels sets at my disposal to work from i haven't gotten around to measuring all of them yet.

So what's the best complete clutch + proper csc to buy? I plan on supercharging (450hp-500hp)

ZSpeed Slave
 

I recently installed the ZSpeed HD Slave and Southbend DXD Clutch/Flywheel combo...

I can tell you and can confirm that there is not one plastic piece in the Zspeed HD Slave...Even my friend that helped me do the install who works for Nissan as a Tech was amazed at the craftsmanship of the product...especially in comparison the stock slave which is a peice of crap...

Here are some pics I took of the slave and clutch kit when it was installed...

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j50/Sindalu/Slave.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...alu/Clutch.jpg

see i would wan't someone to dismantle the csc so i could verify its sturdiness with my on two eyes. When my **** breaks i skip the whole "upgraded" phase and shoot for the "this mother fer's never gonna break" level.

Valeo is who makes the stock slave, Zspeed's is not made by Valeo.

NO plastic.

valeo makes hundreds of csc's the one in our cars is at the very bottom of there cost line, thats why it's crummy and plastic. They make metal ones, most with the interal plastic piston(which you can't actually see unless you take the mofo all they way apart)and you know how i know the zspeed one is still a valeo? the green boot. all the non-oem valeo csc's have that exact boot on them. The bearing on the front is also a sure giveway as valeo has those custom ordered for them(obviously i'm not talking about the sleeve on the face).

I know my CSC's/HTB's and being that it is a valeo it probably still has their standard .050 fluid entry port on the inside of the hydraulic cylinder liner.

I hate to burst your bubble, but you are 100% Wrong on everything you just said here, I guess you don't know as much as you think you do.

so is the zspeed set-up the way to go? I just want to be able to install a new clutch and not have to worry about the damn csc breaking.

If you are installing a new clutch (which technically requires a new CSC anyway) then this currently seems like the best option on the market. It's been for sale for a while on the 350 sites and people seem happy, time will tell how happy but it appears several times better than stock.

It would also appear that spddracer either works for Zspeed or is closely affiliated.

so tell me then why does it look EXACTLY like valeo p/n 804534?

your wrong

Edit: MUhahahahaha

You're still wrong, Let me try this again

NOT MADE BY VALEO.

prove it because it sure looks like it is. oh and iff its a sachs bearing they actually make parts similar to valeo.

Edit: It does appear to be the sachs interchange part for the same valeo number i posted, meaning same sh!t different pile. I would say take it apart and see for your self but the sachs ones don't come apart easily because they don't use a snap ring on the end. I could be a real douche and say everyone go out and buy a 2000 saab 9-3 oem csc from autozone fab up an aluminum adapter plate and buy the lines and fittings off summit but it probably is easier to just buy the zspeed one. either way you can't tell me its better than this bad azz mofo http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/263..._Hydraulic.jpg

Is that thin black ring in the center of the clips in the bearing plastic? if yes that is the front of the piston

Yes

I will verify that it is not plastic for you, It is not a Sachs or Valeo nor is it the slave you think, If you are going to make a slave, Please go ahead and get it done for everyone, In the meantime, we would appreciate it if you leave our products out of your assumptions.

We worked very hard on this set-up to make sure everything is perfect and it would last.

The HD Slave kit we offer has proven itself in many cars, in drift events, drag racing, street use with many different clutch set-ups for over a year now.

Joe, which clutch/flywheel set-up would you recommend to use with your kit? It is a street driven car that I plan on supercharging (450-500hp)

alright i'm done beating the dead horse (it has to be LUK then, or a chinese repop) The modified PTT Trimax should be done some time around just after i'm done saving up for an uprev tuner license, and finishing up the vvel project this spring.

:iagree:

Straight from the man himself....Like I mentioned in my last post...No Plastic....even my friend who is a tech for Nissan that helped me install the Zspped HD Slave when installing my clutch was impressed by the craftsmanship of Zspeed's HD Slave Kit.

Trust me....Zspeed's HD Slave kit is a lot better than the our stock CSC....We all know from posts here on the forum that our stock CSC is crap, but when you get to see it for your own eyes and compare it to Zspeed's HD Slave, you see the difference in the quality between the two...

Besides...Zspeed has a warranty on the HD Slave kit, which tells you a lot about the confidence that they have on this product...Zspeed HD Slave FTW!!!!!!

For the clutch I would choose the Southbend DXD Endurance stage 4 or I can custom build a DXD stage 2 to hold the power. These are both amazing street kits and last a very long time.

The flywheel would need to be your personal choice, The Southend doesn't make the rattle noise like the lighter units do but they are also on the heavier side, about 26lbs.
You can go with a lighter unit with these kits like ACT, we have most of them in stock with the exception of JWT.

Thanks

I know RCZ had the southbend/fidanza set-up, I'll ask him how his experience with it is. What about the spec 2 clutch, any good?

I've used the JWT light flywheel on a 07 HR and loved the quick revving aspects of it. But I didn't like the rattle or the difficultly of rev-matching on downshifts (before SRM) Plus the problems of shifting before I knew about Z-Speeds CSC bearing. Plus the RPM doesn't hold well with the lighter flywheel and one must shift faster to hit the rev points on gear changes.

This time around I wanted something more reliable and quieter and with a heavier flywheel to help with up-shifts/downshifting and the 4.08 gears. I went with the Stage 4 clutch offering and a CSC bearing cap. This spring I will be updating to the Z-Speed CSC kit and predict to have a trouble free service life.

Glad to see your a vendor now Joe. Welcome to the forum :tup: