Clutch Thoughts
Thanks for the info. It used to be that there were few options for clutches. Now there are tons of options and its hard to decode what and what not to use with limited experience. Thanks for you help.
I hate to come off like a prick (although my wife says I do it very well and she has to live with me so I guess she knows) but I've been doing this crap since 1980 and it frys my *** to see them saying the same crap they were saying back then.
Weed burner is correct. They are more worried about you having a clutch slip than you crunching 3rd gear, killing U joints or twisting axles. You need to be able to control clutch engagement. They say slip, but I don't call it that. You are controlling how fast the disc goes 1:1 with the flywheel and pressure plate. The quicker it goes 1:1 the harder it is on parts.
Think of plate load as the size of a hammer and RPM is how fast you swing it. The higher the plate load, the bigger the hammer. Turn the RPM up and you hit it harder. I could wreck a set of slicks in a few runs. I'd beat the sidewalks out of them. Also, you need to remember that as the surface area of the clutch disc gets less, the specific loading of the disc goes up. Just using imaginary numbers...let's say you have a disc with a full face and it's 50 square inches and you are spreading your 2600 pounds across 50 square inches. Now look at they disc they want you to run. Let's say it only has half of the face area. You now have 25 inches that you are spreading that 2600 pounds over. You double the clamp load.
I know lots of guys run that stuff and swear by it. It's quite likely they are smarter than me and can make it work. It's also just as likely that just by the shear number of failures I've been forced to learn what not to do.
Before you buy anything take some time and make sure you get what you need. I hate to see car beating, parts breaking clutches still being used today. I started in 1980. That's 37 years of watching most of the clutch manufacturers doing the same dumb **** over and over and over again. Drives me absolutely flaming nuts.