Hello there ladies and gents!

I'm in need of a new gearbox and figure now would be a good time to sort the clutch out whilst at it!

It's my daily driver but also gets a fair amount of abuse on track and autotests Power at the moment is around 300, will be approx 350 sometime next year.

Thus far I've been recommended the fx400 and the "act organic clutch good for 400 ft/lbs ". Chris also mentioned the "OS gikken twin plate".

Anyone have any experience with these clutches or can recommend anything more suited to the job?

Cheers

I've gone off clutchmasters FX clutches having seen the state of Daryl's after 30K gentle(ish) road miles and also heard other tales of woe (both FX300 and FX400). In Daryl's case the release bearing colapsed completely prompting removal. Inspection revealed the lugs holding the springs in the middle of the clutch plate had worn badly, 1 was only paper thin and would probably have failed within a few K more miles. Friction lining still had plenty of life left.
In my case (fx300), as you know from the last autotest, a fair bit came off the friction lining with just a few starts.

Excedy seem to have changed to a 4 spring format in the middle from 6 spring and I understand TCB have stopped selling them due to returns/complaints.

For standard road use / standard car OEM toyota (available from TCB) seems to be preferred choice but probably won't be up to your use.

My own thoughts are that a twin plate will share the load over twice the surface area so should take a lot more grief with good lifespan but have no experience with these.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

I've gone for an RPS Max Street Clutch and HKS Moly Flywheel for my track car build (400-450bhp).
Bit overkill for you though!
Would strongly recommended talking to James at TGT
He sorted a stage 1 clutch (with lightened flywheel) on my daily driver/tss red st205 - no issues what so ever (was running 300-350bhp).
HTH

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Vice Chairman
1990 White UK Celica ST185 - Project DTM
1997 Cream BMW R1200C (as seen in James Bond "Tomorrow Never Dies")
2005 Jaguar X-type 3.0 Sovereign AWD Automatic
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Bit of googling.

http://www.alltrac.net/phpBB2/viewtopic ... 43&t=38723


Also check which clutches come with a flywheel, as this is a significant cost if you want a lightened one.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

Std Toyota clutch is damn good quality and will handle 300bhp fine. Lots of drag runs it may not like but neither will any full face IMHO.

The clutch Sirius / Mike has is also pretty good for yoru power. It is an RPS of some type (lower ratng than max street)

I ran a cluthmasters FX300 for a fair while and a RPS Max Street - had no problems with either at 300-360bhp depending on who you ask Both had a heavy ish pedal, too much for 3 hour traffic jam on M25 but otherwise OK.

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JP
GT4DC Treasurer

Grey St185 RC
Silver BMW E46 M3
Multicolour yawn Honda VFR400
Silver Honda Civic Type-R

Cheers for the replies guys!

The "act organic clutch good for 400 ft/lbs " was recommended by James at TGT.

It defiantly requires a lot more research! The contrast between the abuse it gets on track and how it gets driven mon - fri is massive. I really do granddad drive it. I have all sorts of cars driving up my bum on cold mornings but that’s only since I got the apexi ecu and started monitoring the injection duty lol!
Point being its going to get a fair amount of REALLY easy driving lol

The stock ST205 clutch is a piece of sh.. .May be good enough for a non modded car at road use only, but it can´t handle the output of a lightly upgraded engine.

I have a stock ST205 clutch in my CS and it starts smoking very fast at high RPM starts after had done only 40k km.

You are in the minority here, think everyone here recommends the 205 clutch for cars upto ~350 ft/lb... providing the clutch isn't dumped on take off!

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Kris
95 ST205 - slept for 10 years, now waking up...
Avensis
http://www.gtfours.co.uk
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Turbocharging - the replacement for displacement

much agreed with Kris there my friend, my car has now done 50k MILES on the stock clutch with the last 20k being at 340bhp and i have done over 7 trackdays on it and a 15 lap stints at the Nurburgring and it still pulls strong with loads of bite on it.

As stated by Kris the only reason the stock clutch wouldnt work is due to launching the car, as far as a fast road trackday clutch goes the stock unit is very good clutch as would be expected from toyota.

40K is more than many uprated clutches last with normal road use. If you're going to do loads of quick getaways expect to change the clutch much more often.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

he is also talking km there too in which 20k odd miles which isnt too good, to kill a stock 205 clutch in that miles you need to be launching it as normal road and track use just would not kill it. simple as that

He did say that he it smokes under high RPM starts.

I don't think that many would disagree that the stock clutch would die quickly with launches.

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GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK

I bought the car with 160k km on it. The ST205 engine incl the clutch was fitted at 120k km so i don´t know what the previous owners did with the clutch.

I only tryed high RPM starts three times. One time on a wet road -> wheelspin on all corners as the car got TTE lock diffs front and rear, and two times on a dry road -> clutch smoking and slipping.

Since that I take more care on the clutch as I don´t want to ruin it ASAP. It works acceptable on normal use and gets a bit sticky at very hard road and on track use since I did some BPU to the car. Car was dynoed with 298 HP and 344 Nm @ 0,9 bar.

previous owner may well of hammered it.

personally i am running more boost and alot more power on the stock unit and its always been fine even with some extreme hammer on track, 10+ laps of snetterton 300 track (3 mile circuit) and not a single problem there.

however drag launches are not the stock units strong points unfortunately, i have done a few launches back when the Toyota Sprint series had the trial run at Barkston heath and it coped with 5 launches fine with wheelspin on all 4 wheels from a 5500rpm drop of the clutch.

However i know that the clutch would not last long if you did drag launches alot.

deffo a very good single or twin plate for mulitudes of drag launches for sure

Digging up this old thread.

One of the major purchases left on my build is a clutch.

Car will be around 360-370bhp and hopefully over 340lbft torque.

I've been looking at a few options:

ACT organic clutch looks good but a little hard to get hold of over her, it seems SRB power sell them but no idea I they are still in business.

Competition Clutch also have a couple of nice offerings. Does anyone have any thoughts on this make?

I really want an organic clutch as the paddles are really to extreme IMO for a road car.

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GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK