69MyWay
Well-known member
You may have seen on some other posts I made today that I had a severe clutch failure at Gainesville Speedway last night.
I have the RAM 700 and single mass flywheel mated up to the ZF 6 speed with 3.30 rear gears. I still can't believe the extreme that it failed.
I did a nice burn out and heated up the tires, staged the car. Brought the RPM to about 1,800 waiting on the final yellow to flash. Dropped the clutch, brought up the RPM, and nadda. I saw the tach swing past 6,000 RPM, and looked down to see like 12 mph on the speedo. No strange noise, smell, vibration, or anything.
I go through the gears to find it is all it can do to gain a hold in any of them and finally netted a 54 mph trap speed.
When I picked up my sorry time slip, I put it in first gear and let out the clutch. THE CAR DID NOT MOVE! So, I just let it sit in gear until it started to grab. It was like an auto trans with a bad pump.
I was able to get up to about 12 mph through the pits, and coast it on the trailer. By the time I hit the trailer, my clutch pedal "popped" and slammed to the floor not returning to the proper location.
The center of my trailer is open, so I got underneath for a look see. There was no hydraulic fluid leaking to explain the total loss of the pedal. There was finally a noticeable odor from the clutch disc. IN fact, at this time standing around the car all you could smell was the pungent burning odor of the clutch disc material.
I guess I won't really know until I open it up.
At this time I am undecided as where to go next. I only have 2 or 3,000 miles on the clutch, a handful of hard street races (all of which have been victorious!), and three autox events. I don't think even at that it should have gone away so bad. It also makes me wonder if my ET and trap speed was being compromised on the first three runs. Judging by -=Jeff=-'s ET and the fact are cars have like kind and quality hardware, this and my poor driving skills must explain why I did not strike the 12's last night.
I have the RAM 700 and single mass flywheel mated up to the ZF 6 speed with 3.30 rear gears. I still can't believe the extreme that it failed.
I did a nice burn out and heated up the tires, staged the car. Brought the RPM to about 1,800 waiting on the final yellow to flash. Dropped the clutch, brought up the RPM, and nadda. I saw the tach swing past 6,000 RPM, and looked down to see like 12 mph on the speedo. No strange noise, smell, vibration, or anything.
I go through the gears to find it is all it can do to gain a hold in any of them and finally netted a 54 mph trap speed.
When I picked up my sorry time slip, I put it in first gear and let out the clutch. THE CAR DID NOT MOVE! So, I just let it sit in gear until it started to grab. It was like an auto trans with a bad pump.
I was able to get up to about 12 mph through the pits, and coast it on the trailer. By the time I hit the trailer, my clutch pedal "popped" and slammed to the floor not returning to the proper location.
The center of my trailer is open, so I got underneath for a look see. There was no hydraulic fluid leaking to explain the total loss of the pedal. There was finally a noticeable odor from the clutch disc. IN fact, at this time standing around the car all you could smell was the pungent burning odor of the clutch disc material.
I guess I won't really know until I open it up.
At this time I am undecided as where to go next. I only have 2 or 3,000 miles on the clutch, a handful of hard street races (all of which have been victorious!), and three autox events. I don't think even at that it should have gone away so bad. It also makes me wonder if my ET and trap speed was being compromised on the first three runs. Judging by -=Jeff=-'s ET and the fact are cars have like kind and quality hardware, this and my poor driving skills must explain why I did not strike the 12's last night.
