Just recently the Clutch in my 8 exploded and now I find myself in the market for a clutch. I have a rotary mechanic that I go to so I asked him what sort of replacement clutch i should put in it. As it stands now, the car is still all stock, but I do have some big plans for it. So he's telling me unless I'm gonna do some performance upgrade to the car, I should probably go with a stage 1 clutch, and if I'm gonna be fixing up the car, I should go with a 6 puck stage 4 clutch. A friend of his said I should get a stage 1 with new flywheel over the stage 4.

It's not like I push the car all the time but i take it out to the track every so often. And I'm hearing that the clutches with pucks can be repucked after there done for which seems like a good way to go. I'm just a little afraid that the stage 4 would be a little to aggressive for the car.

So which stage clutch should I put into this fantastic car? I don't know enough about them to make that great of a call so I'm looking for opinions.

 

Get a stage one or stage 2 clutch at most.....a 6-puck is not fun to daily drive..they are harsh and really don't have much better hold than a full disc with some of the new carbon /Kevlar materials....

 

the OEM is a Stage 1 so unless you'll be tracking the hell out of the car, I'd suggest staying in that type of clutch.
Stage 4 would be OVER-KILL on a daily driver and odds are you'd hate it.

 

Would a stage 3 clutch be just as overkill?

It's not like a track the car like crazy but i don't drive it all the time either. So when I do drive it, I want it to perform.

 

After research about clutch for 2months, came up with excedy stage1, exedy flywheel, and counter weight. I think this combo is a good stepup from OEM setup, the flywheel is 12lb + counter wieght and bolts is 4.1lb. This should be enough fir daily drive, I don't believe higher stage clutch will do you good if you have nothing to pull it. Like putting 22" tires on you car is cool but it kills drivability of your car.

 

stage 1 or stage 2 at most would be my recommendation.
My clutch has 66,000 miles on it already so I'll probably be replacing it soon and I don't plan on going more then a stage 2 at most.

Here, pick one.
http://blackhaloracing.com/products-...tch--flywheel/

 

Stage one... exit left.............

 

I got about 130k out of my stock clutch and replaced it with a Centerforce stage2 and I love it. Have 20k on it now and it feels great, the nice part is the pedal feel isn't that different then stock but it engages so much faster then my stock clutch did.

 

It's hard to describe, the pedal feels at times lighter then stock but the engagement is almost as quick and solid as the 6-puck ceramic I had in my turbo celica that (planting 480hp to the ground). It seems to mess with ppl tho, when ever it goes to the shop for tires / inspections they always stall it and then say they didn't expect it to grab so hard and fast.

If you've never seen one, they have a odd looking pressure plate with a counter weight system that increases clamping pressure with RPM. The only odd ball thing that I've run into is the engagement point moves a little bit as you get up around 8000rpms.

I made the choice to try it since I've had Exedy's and ACT's in the past and they were nice, often heavy on the pedal but over a nice feel. I then read about the design and so on about the centerforce and saw a few pictures of the pressure plate and I became very curious since I'd never used let alone seen a clutch like that. So when the time came for a clutch job and the price of Centerforce from Mazdatrix was just right so I figured why not. Haven't been disappointed so far, tho it did take a moment to get the pedal set right how I like it.

As to the faster engagement and how that's better, I have felt clutches on rotaries slide a little on engagement in the hi-rpms either from age or power (actually had this become an issue in the Celica that I mentioned). Any aftermarket clutch should resolve this but with how light the pedal feels with the Centerforce it just stood out more.

 

^Great information! I've been doing a ton of research on this topic and you have continually offered up your expertise. We are fortunate to have you on our forums!