Clutch choice

Car: 540-in, 3700 lbs, 3.54 Dana, 4-speed, "Just a little street car"

10.5" flywheel / bellhousing

My choices are either Ram or McLeod for a clutch, and the flywheel too.

I know I should, and will, talk to both of them, but before I do, I was just wondering
what folks think of dealing with each of them. I'm hoping either one can supply the
proper clutch, whatever that might be.

You have other choices.

I'd call Rob Youngblood at Advanced Clutches in Idaho and let him pick the clutch. That a pretty heavy car without much gear. Your going to need something that you can tune or you'll get so much plate load it will kill parts.

Call Rob.

1)Will this little street car get traction?

2) How much weight and hp?

3)Do you own a lift?

If the car has a Quicktime bellhousing that will limit your choices.

Car will have street tires and will never be launched, if only for the sake of not killing parts.

HP, I don't know, pump gas motor, but a lot of torque on tap.

The bell is OE #2892513, flywheel will be 10.5 aluminum unit.

No lift, just blocks of wood.

I thought maybe a dual disc clutch, but this is where I need advice.

We have a lot of customers using the RST. You didn't mention if your using 23 or 18 spline.
http://www.brewersperformance.com/proddetail.php?prod=MC6913-02

I'm not a fan of the dual disc clutch. Many are, but I'm not one of them. IMO, for what you are doing a sintered iron disc would be much better, and yes, you can use them on the street. That's why I suggested to call Rob Youngblood. He may tell you I'm off my rocker. But it's worth the call.

Thanks gentlemen. I do appreciate the advice.

I will say that sintered iron makes me a little uneasy, only from what I know from reading, not from driving.

I should add that I still need to go through the 4-spd that I have, which is a 23-spl, 2.65 gear I think.
At this point I think I would like to retain the synchros, no faceplating.

Dan, that McLeod RST does look interesting !

For a throw your wife/brother/etc the keys and enjoy a drive kind of thing I like Dan's idea here. Do those RST deals fit in a quicktime bell? If you were going to beat on it sure a un-sprung sintered iron disc would be best for service life. The syncho's will die first.

I have a McLeod Street Twin in my 71 Challenger, 470", 600HP, aluminum Hemi 4 speed, Dana 3.54

Its the only clutch that would hold up. I went through 3 other setups. Only thing is it's, how do I say, grabby. If I'm not careful leaving a stoplight my car will launch 1/2 way through the intersection. Luckily the BB has enough torque to not stall if I release the clutch with very little throttle cause you can't really slip this clutch.

I'm very satisfied with it but I wouldn't throw the keys to just anyone to drive it

71TA,

Beautiful car !

Does your clutch have organic lining on both discs ? I'm interested in why it's grabby.
I know you don't want to slip the organics.

I've seen several different brand street and strip clutches years ago that had organic lining on one side and sintered iron on the other side, the owners said they really like them on the street and strip

That's not sintered iron. That's a bronze metallic piece of crap.

Mad Sci,
Could you describe what it felt like driving a sintered iron clutch ?
I know this is somewhat like asking "What does beer taste like ?"
I can imagine, but it's just imagining without doing.
I also understand that asking about clutch wear is pointless and depends on everything else in the universe.

I'm sure many will come along and argue this but I'll post it anyway.

The sintered iron clutch, if properly adapted to your application (meaning you had a Rob Youngblood or a Hyatt or a Cale...dang...can't think of Cale's last name right now but he owns Black Magic Clutches put together a clutch for you that may have different levers or spring rates or what ever) will be the easiest to drive, the easiest on parts and the quickest at the track of any clutch. It's that simple. You'll run so little base load (pressure) it's silly (I'd have to check my notes but off the top of my head I'm running right now, just for street stuff about 875 base load and about 8 grams on all the levers for a total...again going off my head and not my notes about a total of 1200ish pounds of plate load at 7000 RPM so that is really very little and at the track I'd drop the base load down to the low 600's and tune from there) and you can tune the clutch any way you want it.

Everyone squeals at the unsprung hub. With very little base load you'll never know its not a sprung hub. The weight of the disc by itself is a bit heavy, but it's still less that two rag discs and a floater by a ways.

I'd never ever go back to anything else. They are easily the most street friendly clutch I've used. And done correctly, they don't break parts.

You are on the right track in that you already have an aluminum flywheel. That's almost half the battle. A heavy flywheel is a parts killer and you just don't need it.

If for some reason you decide to not use a sintered iron clutch, I'd suggest you look into the clutch tamer. My first choice is always the SO clutch, but the upfront costs and all the nonsense on the interwebs scare some off. The clutch tamer will cover most of the evils of a rag disc clutch and allow you to tune the application of the clutch. In other words, the CT allows you to control how the clutch is applied to the rest of the drive train and the chassis/tire. The SI clutch is my first choice. Any other clutch than that and you'll need a CT.

Cale Aronson

Thank You. For the life of me I couldn't remember his name. His wife Tinzy knows her way around a clutch pretty well too.

I'm a Center Force clutch guy. Got one in all my stick vehicles!

. Same here. I've got a DFX in my car now.

I drove a sintered iron disk on the street in my Hyatt soft loc. Worked just fine. It does squeal a bit when it’s hot during engagement. Kind of sounds like a bad idler pulley. Doesn’t do it when it fully dis-engaged or engaged. This one did require a strong left leg.

Why the strong leg?? I can't read all of what is written on the cover but it looks like 600 pounds at something something. That think should have been like stepping in oatmeal.

The issue with the squealing is almost always because at some point (usually a burnout of you're not careful or the ding dong at the track doesn't understand you don't prep the burnout area the same for a clutch as you do for the pop up toasters of transmissions or you were bee bopping down the road and stood on the throttle with the RPM too low...it happens and yes, ive done both) you've driven through the clutch. IOW's you actually slipped the clutch. It's real easy on a burn out.

When that happens, you need to pull the clutch out, glass bead the disc and scuff the pressure ring and flywheel surface a bit and put it back in. That will stop the squealing.

I've also seen some cheap pilot bushings and even a pilot bearing squeal like that. It's not the same sound, but it's close.

Actually the gentlemen that built the clutch said it would squeal a bit on the street and it was nothing to worry about. And it did it well before I ever put power to it. And it is like stepping on oatmeal, if you serve your oatmeal frozen.

Are you using organic or miba lining?

I ran an organic street twin in a 9 second car years back and it was really smooth on the street. Would slip it at the track at 5k rpm no problem.

What about 4-10 gears, all other specs the same other than being a Hemi? Going down this road soon.
Sorry to hijack.

Same here, I am leaning towards the RST.

I am kinda in the same boat. Not sure what flywheel to run or clutch. I have a 500 inch making about 600 hp. 3700 pound car with 3.54 gears and a 18 spline trans. Mostly street driving with a few trips to the track. It has drag radials on it and cal tracks springs and bars.

I am using the Mcleod Borg and Beck 3 finger. Mcleod doesn't make the pressure plate anymore(360153). I have a used pressure plate that Mcleod rebuilt and will be installing it next month. Passon Perf and Brewers sells Ram clutch kits. Both of them have had no issues with them so far.

Is that the Borg & Beck plate and cover with the Ford Lever? If so, that's a good set up if you make it adjustable.