Just had single mass flywheel installed

Originally Posted by ccj4467

You might check out the thread on the Valeo SMF conversion kit in the General E46 forum.

Thanks! Read that and now I'm going to give valeo a ring. I'm trying to get out of installing another full kit+fw but I still do not know the extent of the damage. There is only about 30miles on the car post failure but until we can lay eyes on it...anything's poss so I'm thinking I want all the parts at the ready and if I don't need them I'll ship them back.

All the shop did to my flywheel was just clean it up a bit with a coarse Scotch brite pad.

I had told them that I would live with any clutch chatter from hot spots on the fly wheel.

I don't know if it is just a coincidence or what, there is a very lengthy thread in this section of the forum about the Gripforce/F1-Racing setup that was started quite a while ago. It started with everyone loving the setup, affordble, quality parts and performance.

Then it seems to me that in the last six months or so people posting that thread started complaining about this same issue only 6K to 10K miles on the clutch before failure.

I wonder if Gripforce is having some quality control issues or manufacturing issues? Since nobody seems to get a response from them I guess we will never know.

This all seems very strange, you shouldn't slip the clutch taking off. Furthermore, if you are slipping your clutch on every take off it will wear much faster. Do a little tap on the clutch pedal, once the car lunges forward smash the gas. More gas, less slip. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. If you like a stock feel, stay stock. Don't buy and after market "race" set up and try to water it down. Launch the car, tires are much cheaper. I put 32k on my F1 clutch. 5k awd launches, hot lapping it until the brake sensors catch fire. Break in periods are very important, I'm assuming everyone broke in their clutches for 1500 miles before ever getting serious with em. Or maybe the lack of driving ability destroyed the clutch during the break in period. yep

Maybe for me it was the break in period. I only went like 1000 miles for break in. Then did a track event at Watkins Glen. I don't slip the clutch bit I also don't launch the car like a dragster.

If the break n is supposed by 1500 then it was probably my fault for not doing a proper break in.

As for me I drove it was perfect the day before mum took the boy for a drive. mum let him drive to grandma's house. The story is he was at a certain stop light with a slight incline and started off in third. I think slipping the clutch would be an understatement. She drove home and told me that the clutch felt funny on the way back. I took it out the next morning and yeah, the clutch definitely felt really funny. Got onto the freeway and acceleration ends through 3k rpm and then the clutch holds nothing. It slips and stays out until you drop back down below 3k. Turned aound and parked it. I drove it once for a test loop since and 1st is slipping madly until about 2k. The pedal has like 3-4 inches of travel and doesn't engage until the last 1/2" or so on the way out and then starts slipping just under 3k.

One uphill start for a kid in third made a clutch a turd.

As for the bit about no slipping the clutch, yeah, I pretty much agree but around here we have this phenomena called traffic so dropping and stomping can't always pay off. Slip starts happen but yeah, it's not a good habit.

All said and done I was about to give the f1 a positive review update for the 10k mark. Now I don't care, I just want another clutch. I think the boy will not do it again.

Now I'm trying to find a decent sprung hub clutch kit and I aim to keep the flywheel if it's not a wobbler. It would be nice if I could just have another disk put in but I don't know enough to bet on it. I'm already placing a little bet on doing the work without a flywheel standing by I think.