As mentioned previously, on the last track day I was having issues with the standard (possibly pattern part I think) clutch slipping on the quicker gear changes. It was fine otherwise. However, it was dealing with double the power it was intended for and so was only a matter of time before it gave up. I spent some time researching what would be best, and ended up deciding on a Competition Clutch, Stage 4. This would be a 6 puck paddle clutch, so not great in traffic but pretty well suited for track work.
The company I ordered the clutch from suggested I instead change for a clutch by Action Clutch. They said they saw many failures from Competition Clutch but are yet to see a single one from Action clutch. They’re a Honda orientated company (www.h-tune.co.uk) and a quick internet search suggested they were right – I found numerous instances of failures with the Competition Clutch. But, these seemed limited to Hondas and Mitsubishis. I didn’t find a single problem with a Mazda one.
Either way, I took their advice and opted for a clutch by Action Clutch. This company has been around since the days of the hot rods and whilst the ownership has changed hands (from original owner to apprentice), they’re still hand made in Los Angeles. Being hand made, I was fully expecting it to turn up with blood on it.
After just over a week, the clutch arrived directly from the states.
I think the shiny redness is good for at least 10bhp.
So, this weekend I set about removing the engine. I made life a bit hard for myself as I wanted to remove it as complete as possible, just to see how little could be removed. This is fine, but removing the inlet manifold really would have made getting at some of the bolts a lot easier. I miss those throttle bodies! In the end, the engine was removed complete with manifolds, turbo, downpipe and oil cooler. I removed the standard clutch and was greeted with this:
That’s not too bad. A bit more wear than you’d expect for about 2,000 miles but it wasn’t showing signs of completely letting go any time soon. I think that if you were just road driving then it would have lasted fine. Being impatient, I quickly offered the new clutch up to the engine:
Yep, seems to fit! It’s not torqued up though, I need to remove it and the flywheel to replace the rear crank oil seal. This was done when I rebuilt the engine last year but I was never completely happy with it and it does show signs that it has been weeping a bit. Better safe than sorry on that front and given removing the engine is not as easy as I remembered, should really do it now.
Westfield build, Mazda SDV 