My clutch is slipping pretty badly so I'm going to replace it here in a little while. What all do I need to buy to replace it? My neighbor who works on Chevy's quite a bit said I would need to buy a new master cylinder when I get a new clutch kit, is there any truth to that? Any other things I would need?

 

master cylinder is not needed.

98-00 will benefit from a new upgraded slave cylinder, about $140 from any of the site sponsors.

other than that, if you buy a Spec it comes with everything you need except the flywheel. they come with the disc, pressure plate, throwout bearing, pilot bushing and alignment tool.
you can either resurface your stock flywheel or purchase a new one.

i'm still breakin in my Spec 4 but it drives great on the street. even from the beginning it had very little chatter and seems to grip REAL well. i mated it to a Fidanza alum flywheel which is much lighter. it isn't ideal for dragracing but works good for autoX or the like since it has less mass. frees up a bit of hp/tq and the engine revs REALLY quick now.

 

Sorry for the dumbass question here...but what makes an alum flywheel bad for drag racing?

 

Yeah....what he said

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not saying you're wrong but from my understanding the lighter FW affects it differently.

here's how i understand it:

less mass means the FW has less momentum (basic physics) and when you launch the momentum stored in the FW helps get the clutch/trans/driveline all up to engine speed faster. so the less momentum you have the more the engine bogs down on the launch and to some extent on the shift.

now once the engine is spinning the same speed as the rest of the driveline...ie..clutch fully engaged with no slip...the lighter FW requires less power to increase it's speed from say 3000rpms to 6000rpms. so you will see less parasitic loss of hp between the engine and the wheels...which in theory translates to faster times.

so it's kindda a give/take relationship. but i think for the most part the loss in launching ability outweighs the gain in hp to the wheels. particularly with heavier cars.
now if the camaro was 2000lbs...it probbaly would be a different story.

now..
it's also my understanding that less rotating mass in the driveline actually translates to more torque. i've seen a dyno graph of the aluminum driveshaft compared to the steel on an LT1. it showed less than 1hp gain, but almost 5 or 6#s of torque. jsut due to less rotating mass of the shaft. and to think that is only 5lbs or so and at a diameter of 3".
think of the difference of almost 15lbs less at a diameter of 13" on a flywheel

on a rotating mass, the farther the weight is from the center the more momentum it has. meaning it takes more effort to slow it down, as well as more power to accelerate it.

maybe an engineer will chime in...it's been 7yrs since college physics

 

Well, on LS1's I have seen anywhere from 10-20rwhp. The benifits are faster revs, quicker accel. You will notice it when you take off though wether its from a stop light or the starting line. It will act like its wanting to bog down. Some people say you cant tell the difference some say its night and day. You got to think about it like this, when you drag race, you only leave the starting line once the rest of the time in your high in the rpms. Anything that will help the motor pull faster will be benificial. As long as you can compensate on the starting line. Spec offers a aluminum flyw and a billet one. The billet is 7~8lbs lighter than stock and the aluminum one wieghts 8~10lbs. IT seems to me that the Billet flyw will be a happy Medium for you.

 

Thanks for the replies The A-hole that owned my car before me put in some crap clutch since everytime I do a hole shot I'm cooking my clutch. (It's supposedly brand new)

How much money am I looking for a Spec clutch and Billet FW?

 

SS that's pretty funny...i'll take that as a little compliment.

as for prices.

i got my Spec 4 for $410 shipped through a group purchase, and i saved a TON of money on my Fidanza FW off ebay. most places were going $350 or so, an ebay company had them for $299 with free shipping

 

oh, by the way...

my stock FW weighed about 27lbs according to my bathroom scale, the Fidanza weighed in at 13lbs

i have pics of the old one and the new one on the bottom of page 3 in my webpage in the sig

 

Does the Spec come with an upgraded slave cylinder??

 

No...you're going to have to buy one.

As said, you don't need to buy a new master...however, my Spec stg 3 engages very high and an adjustable master cylinder would allow me to bring it back down to where it should be. I haven't heard anybody else complain about this though (really haven't really looked into it) so maybe I just got a little unlucky.

Honestly, if you don't race much, I'd recommend a stg 2 or even a Z06 clutch (factory in '01-'02 F-bodies). The stg 3 is kinda hit or miss with the chatter and IMO it is pretty aggressive for street use on a basically stock car and stock 3.42s. A stg 2 or Z06 will hold fine on the street and at the track if you're just running street tires.

 

i agree...

i did the stage 4 because i'm running around 400rwhp and plan to add heads soon...hoping for 430-440rwhp.

i heard problems with the springs on the stg 3 so i followed the "go big or go home" idea
now i'm good for 700hp

 

Well thats reassuring to hear about the Spec 3 not holding up, I just ordered one, plan on getting it installed next tuesday, with a ton of other mods. I think to Spec 3 is good for 700Hp too, right. And mine came with the billet flywheel. I should be around 400rwhp and I'm just getting started with my mods. Hopefully, the Spec 3 was a good choice.

 

How'd that work out?

 

Will let you know when I get the car back on Friday after the install and dyno tune