# Clutch trouble, please help



## Nico Flax (May 3, 2003)

Hello Everyone, 

I am probably the biggest newbie ever, not just to the GA16 200SX, but I to cars in general, I'm still young. On to the point, I read past posts about clutches and I'm going to buy an ACT clutch, as of none I'm bone stock but plan to start building her up little by little, anyway on the ACT clutch, I was reading that people were lightening the flywheel, or doing something to it. I know the benifits of a light flywheel, but I want to know is that nesacessary? If I buy the ACT clutch can I just install it without messing with the flywheel? If not, what do I have to do to the flywheel. Thank you guys, your a great help. Also on a side note, I want to buy a Stromung exhaust, but does anyone know the price? and is it the whole cat back and muffler? They don't even have the exhaust listed on their site and I tried calling but didn't get through. Thanks again

Nico


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## Ickys SE-R (Sep 2, 2002)

*IMO*

First, It will be ok for you to get the ACT clutch without CHANGING the flyweel,but you deff need to get it resurfaced.Your local machine shop should be able to do it for like 30-40 bucks..

Second,WHY such an expensive clutch?It's stock right?You can get cheaper ones that are slightly stronger than stock for like 100-150..
Then my final Q: Why a GA16?You should have found a SE-R with a SR20de in it..It will give you alot better results once you start modin...


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## se7enty7 (Jun 18, 2002)

I have a GA. I am happy with it - and of the se-r's around here, I would rather have mine.

I have yet to see an se-r (in person) that I would trade for my car.



Be happy with your GA16de and ignore the (few) assholes that tell you to "sell the ga16.."


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## Ickys SE-R (Sep 2, 2002)

I'm just sayin I got an SE-R and if I was going to put like $1000 into the engine I could get somethin like 200-250hp not "whp"..But on the other hand you would prob just break 200hp or less....But hey there are more than enough people to speculate on that one....

The SE-R's dont look that diff than your SE.I think mine just has side skirts..and the rims are diff....


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## se7enty7 (Jun 18, 2002)

err
"to put like $1000 into the engine I could get somethin like 200-250hp not "whp".."

uh.. huh..

http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/e/se7enty7/side.JPG

You mean it looks like that se-r?
Oh.. wait.. that's my se..


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## ReVerm (Jan 13, 2003)

Nico, Ickys is right (well, about the flywheel thing). You should definately have the flywheel resurfaced at least so the new clutch doesn't get worn oddly during burn-in. 

A new, lighter flywheel is more of a personal preference, I suppose. I, for one though, definately would like the money for one. Heel & toe takes so much effort on my car it's annoying.


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## se7enty7 (Jun 18, 2002)

a flywheel makes it easier to stall

it is a general consensus that it is better.. or cheaper.. to lighten the stock flywheel

keeping that in mind, you can buy a flywheel from autozone for $60.


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## Ickys SE-R (Sep 2, 2002)

se7enty7 said:


> *err
> "to put like $1000 into the engine I could get somethin like 200-250hp not "whp".."
> 
> uh.. huh..
> ...



???what you mean by that?


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## se7enty7 (Jun 18, 2002)

Okay. You say you can get 200-250 through the engine on a sr20.

other than no2, I call BS.

AND.. even with no2.. you can do that with a 100shot through a ga.


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## se7enty7 (Jun 18, 2002)

http://www.nissanforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21549

There's a recent thread that is talking exactly what we are discussing


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## kristinspapi (Aug 29, 2002)

*well...*

I am helping a friend replace the clutch on his audi and it's been quite a job. Next we plan and I need to replace my clutch. I picked up a OEM clutch and new clutch cable. My question becomes should I spend the time and money now to get an ACT clutch and a lightened flywheel. It seems the money saved in doing this myself woulf pay for the ACT set up and a lightened flywheel. Opinions? What flywheel should I lok to with an ACT street clutch? thanks. Pablo


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## zeno (Sep 17, 2002)

What is your goal w/ your car? Unless you are planning on going turbo or run no2, the stock clutch is more than capable of handling pretty much every bolt on available. An ACT clutch would certainly be nice but if I were you I would use that money to begin w/ upgrading the intake/header/exhaust and upgrade the clutch later down the road.

Also, no you don't have to buy a lightened flywheel. The reason most people buy a flywheel at the same time (like myself, waiting for the clutch in the mail) is that swapping a clutch is a huge pain in the ass and both the clutch and flywheel can be done at the same time. I certainly don't want to have to drop my tranny more than once.



> What flywheel should I lok to with an ACT street clutch?


You can't beat Fidanza, cheap and high quality. There is a couple for sale in the classified and over at sr20deforums.



> I'm just sayin I got an SE-R and if I was going to put like $1000 into the engine I could get somethin like 200-250hp not "whp"..But on the other hand you would prob just break 200hp or less....But hey there are more than enough people to speculate on that one....


That is complete b.s. There is no way you will even come close to 200hp w/ $1000 unless you are spraying. Mike Kojimo's NA 200SX SE-R was barely pushing 200hp and they dropped a thousands into it. Even turbo is going to cost $2000+.


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## kristinspapi (Aug 29, 2002)

zeno said:


> *Also, no you don't have to buy a lightened flywheel. The reason most people buy a flywheel at the same time (like myself, waiting for the clutch in the mail) is that swapping a clutch is a huge pain in the ass and both the clutch and flywheel can be done at the same time. I certainly don't want to have to drop my tranny more than once.
> 
> You can't beat Fidanza, cheap and high quality. There is a couple for sale in the classified and over at sr20deforums.*


Yeah I though that exact thing after dealing with this audi clutch job. Might as well put a lightened flywheel in. Then again with only 40,000 miles I shouldn't have needed a clutch so the flywheel should be ok. If i tear up another clutch in that kind of low miles then maybe I'll put a flywheel in then as after the anger goes away, I'd have to take in all down again. What exactly are the performance benefits to a lightened flywheel? I daily drive and after some suspension mods I'm just trying to make it a little more fun to drive to work and such. Thanks. Pablo


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## zeno (Sep 17, 2002)

> What exactly are the performance benefits to a lightened flywheel?


From www.se-r.net :

Lightweight flywheels are an easy way to gain some acceleration. Normally the flywheels job is to store some potential energy to help the car get underway off of a standing start. However once the clutch is out and the car is moving, the flywheel is dead weight inhibiting acceleration because of it’s rotating mass. Contrary to popular belief a lightweight flywheel does not give you more horsepower, but improves acceleration. This could possibly register as a gain on an inertial dynamometer like a dynojet. A general rule of thumb is that one lb. off of the flywheel is like 20 off of the car. I have never bothered to calculate to see if this is really true, but a light flywheel is a very feelable difference in 1 &2 gear. For normal driving you have to rev your motor slightly higher than normal and slip the clutch a little more when getting underway as the car will be slightly easier to stall but you will get used to it quickly and it soon becomes a non-issue.

Most of the aftermarket light flywheels available for our cars fall into the 9-12 lb range. The stock SE-R flywheel is about 18 lbs. In my experience you do not want to go much lighter than 9 lbs in a car that is driven on the street or drag raced. One of my cars had a 5 lb. Tilton flywheel and that car was impossible to drive smoothly. Excessively light flywheels will bog out of the hole in a drag race start also. You will probably need to raise your launch rpm somewhat with a light flywheel to prevent bogging out of the hole. Road racing cars need as light of a flywheel that is possible to make to get the most throttle response and acceleration out of turns.
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No one ever said that a lightened flywheel would increase horsepower, but it sure does *decrease* acceleration times. Herb Adams, in his book CHASSIS ENGINEERING, says that "..the effect of reducing rotational inertia on driveline parts has 15 times the benefit of just reducing the weight of the car." I have been intrigued with this statement for months, and wish that I had followed his suggestion a long time ago and gone to a lightened flywheel. I am not an engineer (obviously), but I do have enough seat time to have a fairly refined butt dyno, and I can tell you that the difference in how the engine spools up is not subtle, but positively sensational. I wish that I had done some quarter mile times (yeah, sure, I go to the drags all the time) before I installed my lightened flywheel, so that I could provide reliable, numerical evidence. I didn't, so believe what you choose, but I can think of absolutely no reason NOT to go to the lightened flywheel. It is the single most important modification that I have made in quite a while, and I have made quite a few. 
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As far as perceived acceleration goes, your engine sees the mass of your car as a point stuck way out on some lever arm that it has to twist. If your engine is direct drive (i.e. no gear reduction), and you have an M3, you'd need quite a bit of torque to get that 3175 lbs moving faster. So somebody invented gears, which has the effect of changing the length of the lever, as far as the engine is concerned. In an M3, for example, first gear is 4.20:1 and final drive is 3.23:1 so what looked like 3175 lbs to the engine out at the end of that lever without gear reduction now looks more like 234 lbs (3175/13.57), assuming your rear tire has a radius of one foot give or take a few inches. 

Suppose you had a magic flywheel with all the mass concentrated at the outer edge. Now the flywheel is stuck directly to the engine, so you can't reduce its effective moment via gearing. The only way you can reduce the moment is by lightening it and/or changing its mass distribution. If you could somehow remove 10 lbs from the rim of the flywheel, and the flywheel's radius was also one foot, then that would have the same effect on acceleration in first gear as reducing the mass of the car by 10x13.57 or 135.7 pounds. Now I am guessing the flywheel's radius is more like six to eight inches or so, so 10 pounds off it's outer edge would have the same effect as reducing the car's mass by more like 70-100 pounds (in first gear). Only you can't take that much weight off the edge, and moments of disks look more like 1/2mr^2, etc. etc. Point is that in first gear, the mass of your car appears to be only 20-30 times that of 10 pounds out at the edge of your flywheel, as far as the engine can tell. So the reduction of weight of the flywheel begins to be pretty significant. Expect bigtime effective acceleration improvements in first gear for proper flywheel lightening, similar to what you'd expect from reducing the weight of the car by anywhere from 70 to 100 lbs or more. The benefits decrease in higher gears in proportion to whatever the ratio is. 

Obviously, the lighter your car is to begin with, the bigger an acceleration improvement you'll see since the flywheel mass represents a larger portion of the perceived mass of the car.


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## kristinspapi (Aug 29, 2002)

*all makes sense...*

Thanks for the mid afternoon reading ;-) That being said I'll look for a flywheel on the forums. I found act clutches for @$240 shipped (the street disc, right) at:

no limit motorsports
65 Montauk Hwy
Blue Point, NY 11715 

Anyone have experience with them. The OEM kit I bought was about $80 shipped and the price difference doesn't seem too extreme and I'm hoping will save some need to do this again anytime soon. I really hope I can get this job done in good fashion. Pablo


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2003)

act clutches suck go with a spec clutch at www.nipponpower.com and as far as dropping a $1000 bucks into a motor i did and im running 208hp 172whp... so for who ever thought it was impossible think again...


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## zeno (Sep 17, 2002)

> as far as dropping a $1000 bucks into a motor i did and im running 208hp 172whp... so for who ever thought it was impossible think again...


Read the post smart guy, 200hp w/o turbo, no2, or engine swapping.

What JDM engine are you running? If you are running a JDM sr20de then I say you are bullshit, post your dyno slip to prove it. There is no way you gained 68hp from an intake, exhaust, bored MAF, headers, and an ECU.


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