Hey guys, what's up?

My friend gave me an opportunity to drive his S2000 yesterday. What a blast that car is. He has 3000 miles on it so far, and it seems that the clutch is not very strong. I wanted to ask you guys how your clutchs feel. His feels like it's going out already. His mods are the Comptech Header and Intake. When shifting the car just kinda slid into the next gear. I tried real hard to get a chirp out of 2nd gear (good hard shift at redline) and it just kinda smoothed into the next gear. It wouldn't snap my neck back. Just couldn't get the car to jump on shifting like I would have expected it too.

He drives the car hard, but at 3000 miles, the clutch should still be ok. How are the aftermarket clutches for the car. How well does it react to a lightened Flywheel? Thanks for your comments guys...

 

Stock clutch, flywheel and pressure plate on a SC'd S2000 and no problems. If I dump it from a stop and don't come off the pedal fast enough I'll bake the plate but other than that stock is more than sufficient. An aftermarket flywheel would make the car a little trickier to drive without rev-matching, double clutching, and/or heel toe technique. In addition, you would scrub off more ability to "drag launch" the car. The benefit is a faster revving engine.

If all you are trying to do is chirp the tires (why?) anything with a stick and more than 50hp will do it. It just depends engine speed before/after the shift, tire traction, and how fast you jerk the car into gear. I am still wondering why you want to chirp the tires though...

PROPER CLUTCH DESIGN IS TO FACILITATE SMOOTH SHIFTING AND MAINTAIN ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE ENGINE AND THE DRIVELINE. Exceptions would be for drag or puck-type clutches where smooth shifting goes the way of the dodo bird in favor of clamping force to handle extreme horsepower loads. I don't recommend abusing/thrashing on the car just to get the tires to chirp. There is plenty of power there and abusing the driveline will break expensive parts.

 

No, my sole objective wasn't to go out and chirp 2nd gear. However all out acceleration, with a quick hard shift, the RPM's didn't snap down to the new gear and the tires didn't chirp. The RPM's slowly made their way down, just as if the clutch was slipping. What I'm asking is if this is normal for the car, or does the clutch hit real hard when you shift hard?

 

The clutch will engage hard if you sidestep the clutch. Your foot was probably coming off slower than you percieved. The RPM slow drop is directly related to two things. First the gear box is very close ratio, but the single largest gap is in the 1st-2nd shift. That range is almost a 3000rpm spread if shifting at redline. 2nd the flywheel may be a tad heavier than matches your driving style. A lighter flywheel will allow the engine speed to move up and down the RPM range faster. Also Keep in mind the following: the higher the RPM's the more compression in the engine = faster rate of drop. Lower RPM's less compression slower rate of drop.

 

Or, your clutch could be slipping. I've had this problem and when I swapped to an aftermarket clutch/flywheel, my stock clutch was down to metal. It seems that a lot of S2K owners have weak clutches, and it appears that the weakest part of the car is the clutch.

Does this happen to you: WOT redline 2nd, hard shift to 3rd, back to WOT, instead of your clutch grabbing and sending the RPMs back up when you're on the throttle, the RPMs slide down a bit then start climbing again? Again, this is when you're already WOT in 3rd after redlining 2nd.

Another test is to go to 6K in 2nd, and shift to 4th then go WOT. If you're RPMs start rising but the car isn't "accelerating/moving", then your clutch is slipping.

Hope this helps!

 

Didn't your clutch last the first 5,000km on your car before you replaced it?