Clutch problems suck

In Excess

In Excess

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Always had issues with Kennedy double disc clutches. Tried different pressure plates and flywheels, tried making our own thicker floaters along with thinning the discs to keep stack height the same. Kennedy has checked everything years ago. We keep ripping the fingers off the floaters. Time to move on switching to a McLeod double disc. I just didn’t expect a little Vw would be so hard on parts
 
So I understand properly, the floater is the steel disc sandwiched between the the 2 friction discs, and you are ripping the 6 tabs that locate the floater in the flywheel?

When does this typically happen? During a hard launch from a dead stop? Or during hard use over rough terrain?

I have personally never seen this happen, I am curious to what is causing it.
 
SeanRitchie said:
So I understand properly, the floater is the steel disc sandwiched between the the 2 friction discs, and you are ripping the 6 tabs that locate the floater in the flywheel?

When does this typically happen? During a hard launch from a dead stop? Or during hard use over rough terrain?

I have personally never seen this happen, I am curious to what is causing it.
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Yea that is correct, motor builder says same thing. Never seen it before. I have two races on clutch and all tabs are bent already. My original thought was flywheel was machined incorrectly, third flywheel now it’s not the issue. I have probably ripped the ears off of 5-8 floaters over a 10 year span.

Motor builder is blaming it on the trans, we leave at 7200rpm on two step at 30ish lbs of boost. But he’s blaming it on the air shift. There’s no give at shift

Tires aren’t too big 16.50 Stu, overall gear set is fairly tall. I’d have to look at ratio chart before I comment on that.
 
In Excess said:
Yea that is correct, motor builder says same thing. Never seen it before. I have two races on clutch and all tabs are bent already. My original thought was flywheel was machined incorrectly, third flywheel now it’s not the issue. I have probably ripped the ears off of 5-8 floaters over a 10 year span.

Motor builder is blaming it on the trans, we leave at 7200rpm on two step at 30ish lbs of boost. But he’s blaming it on the air shift. There’s no give at shift

Tires aren’t too big 16.50 Stu, overall gear set is fairly tall. I’d have to look at ratio chart before I comment on that.
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Do you cut timing on the shift?
 
Clutch management like used in drag cars would probably help. Slowing down the clutch engagement would help how hard it hits and reduce the stress on those tabs.
 
SeanRitchie said:
Clutch management like used in drag cars would probably help. Slowing down the clutch engagement would help how hard it hits and reduce the stress on those tabs.
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We are actually adding co2 controlled clutch management as we put it back together
 
The car in my picture is not the car we are addressing. The pictured car uses a crower clutch and lenco trans
 
Impressive I must say to rip 6 fingers on a floater disc !
 
chopshop said:
Impressive I must say to rip 6 fingers on a floater disc !
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Here’s how it actually goes, starts bending the fingers, as they bend it appears we lose equal load then they tear off. We have only ripped 3-4 off per floater, once these pieces come off they tend to get caught in the clutch not allowing release or engagement, also been caught in starter causing starter issues.
 
Bet that all sounds like a party in the bellhousing.

My old buggy exploded a TO bearing. Made quite the mess in there.
 
Kraut_n_Rice said:
Bet that all sounds like a party in the bellhousing.

My old buggy exploded a TO bearing. Made quite the mess in there.
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Honestly not too bad, 9 out of 10 pieces only make it to the clutch and don’t hit the bell housing. But i’m always afraid of the one piece that leaves the party being its only a cast bell housing.
 
I agree with changing the clutch, prepping cars see all kind of clutches, I run 1600hp on a V8 but the shifts are smooth and gap in shifting,
Worked for Jack Beckman, and the clutch on the Top Fuel car has almost no slop on the floaters and the pins,
The closest i have seen to the same setup is the Tilton, they make it for a VW style flywheel for a V8 bolt pattern, i bet they will make it for a full VW or custom,
The V8 runs a 4 and a 5 disc setup,
 
I had a tilton in the early days, bad ass clutch but very on-off. Was hard to stage smoothly. Went away from it because the flywheel was too light and too thin for our application. We needed more rotating mass at the time. We were running a wedgemated flywheel at the time, now we run a flanged crank
 
J Alper said:
I agree with changing the clutch, prepping cars see all kind of clutches, I run 1600hp on a V8 but the shifts are smooth and gap in shifting,
Worked for Jack Beckman, and the clutch on the Top Fuel car has almost no slop on the floaters and the pins,
The closest i have seen to the same setup is the Tilton, they make it for a VW style flywheel for a V8 bolt pattern, i bet they will make it for a full VW or custom,
The V8 runs a 4 and a 5 disc setup,
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This is what the flywheel will look like, the clutch pictured is what I think we are getting. Motor builder is machining the flywheel and has a clutch package that he has used before. I’m going off of memory for the photo on clutch that I saw 9 months ago in a friends car
 

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