Dark Pony
Well-Known Member
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- #1
I'm hoping you guys can help me out and or point me in the right direction. This is gonna be long but I want to be as detailed as possible. Back in June of 2020 I hurt my MT82 during a high rpm shift. Not sure what I broke, but 5th gear wasn't usable. I sent the transmission to Ben Calimer to get his stage 2 build. While the transmission was out, I decided to get a new SPEC twin disk clutch as well as an MGW shifter.
When the trans came back, we assembled everything and stabbed it back in. I did the bleed procedure of pumping the clutch a million times until you get good pressure, but right away I could tell that something was off. Shifting gears was a hard, didn't feel smooth, etc. The engagement point of the clutch was also super high which I didn't like and that coupled with how aggressive it was made it very hard to drive. I decided that I was gonna get a ram clutch height adjuster to see if that would help, and a braided stainless clutch line, and then re-bleed by pushing a solid stream of fluid out of the line where it connects to the trans. After doing this the clutch felt and shifted far better, however I was still experiencing some issues such as high rpm lock out, as well as a strange issue where if I was going over 40 mph, I could not shit into 2nd. I called Ben Calimer to get his thoughts about all this and he believed it was a clutch issue and told me he didn't really like SPEC clutches. I asked him what clutches he would reccomend and one of the ones he said was a lethal performance LPXHD, Which I ended up getting. When we put in the new clutch and slave, I bench bled the slave this time, bled the line before hooking it up to the trans and had instant pedal when it was all connected.
The feel of this clutch is MUCH better than the SPEC for me. It's a heavier pedal, but less aggressive friction material which I'll take over a light clutch and real aggressive material. That said, I'm still having some issues, but they seem to be intermittent. When I want to put it into first or reverse, sometimes it will go in super smoothly, and sometimes I have to fight with it(although it never grinds) sometimes if I let off the clutch and try again it will go in smoothly or at least smoother. Sometimes when I'm pulling the shifter out of gear it will have a fair amount of resistance and I have to force it out almost, or at least use a lot more force than you should need to. The last issue is it feels like there is some stiction in the clutch pedal sometimes. Like when I go to release the clutch and I will feel a little "pop" or something against my foot.
Things I have tried lately: I switched transfluid from amsoil gear oil (reccomend by Calimer) to amsoil synchromesh, to BG synchro shift 2. Brought the car to Finish Line Performance in Ohio to have them look over it, bleed it, do whatever. They removed my clutch height adjuster however no change, and apparently there is no air in the lines. Tried adjusting the MGW shifter, not sure this helped or hurt anything.
I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I called Calimer transmissions again however I didn't speak to Ben, but one of his employees who thinks it may be a clutch pedal issue. While my clutch pedal did have cracks and break, I was having issues with it before, and I had it rewelded as to never break again. I highly doubt that this is the problem, however maybe the community knows better, I just don't want to pay for a whole new assembly and then get it installed to have it not fix anything. One of the only other things I was reading about that I didn't do was lubricate the input shaft splines when we did the clutch. I had never done that before on any other clutch that I've put in, but apparently that's a thing? Any ideas from you guys? Any gurus around central Ohio? Once again, sorry for the long post.
When the trans came back, we assembled everything and stabbed it back in. I did the bleed procedure of pumping the clutch a million times until you get good pressure, but right away I could tell that something was off. Shifting gears was a hard, didn't feel smooth, etc. The engagement point of the clutch was also super high which I didn't like and that coupled with how aggressive it was made it very hard to drive. I decided that I was gonna get a ram clutch height adjuster to see if that would help, and a braided stainless clutch line, and then re-bleed by pushing a solid stream of fluid out of the line where it connects to the trans. After doing this the clutch felt and shifted far better, however I was still experiencing some issues such as high rpm lock out, as well as a strange issue where if I was going over 40 mph, I could not shit into 2nd. I called Ben Calimer to get his thoughts about all this and he believed it was a clutch issue and told me he didn't really like SPEC clutches. I asked him what clutches he would reccomend and one of the ones he said was a lethal performance LPXHD, Which I ended up getting. When we put in the new clutch and slave, I bench bled the slave this time, bled the line before hooking it up to the trans and had instant pedal when it was all connected.
The feel of this clutch is MUCH better than the SPEC for me. It's a heavier pedal, but less aggressive friction material which I'll take over a light clutch and real aggressive material. That said, I'm still having some issues, but they seem to be intermittent. When I want to put it into first or reverse, sometimes it will go in super smoothly, and sometimes I have to fight with it(although it never grinds) sometimes if I let off the clutch and try again it will go in smoothly or at least smoother. Sometimes when I'm pulling the shifter out of gear it will have a fair amount of resistance and I have to force it out almost, or at least use a lot more force than you should need to. The last issue is it feels like there is some stiction in the clutch pedal sometimes. Like when I go to release the clutch and I will feel a little "pop" or something against my foot.
Things I have tried lately: I switched transfluid from amsoil gear oil (reccomend by Calimer) to amsoil synchromesh, to BG synchro shift 2. Brought the car to Finish Line Performance in Ohio to have them look over it, bleed it, do whatever. They removed my clutch height adjuster however no change, and apparently there is no air in the lines. Tried adjusting the MGW shifter, not sure this helped or hurt anything.
I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I called Calimer transmissions again however I didn't speak to Ben, but one of his employees who thinks it may be a clutch pedal issue. While my clutch pedal did have cracks and break, I was having issues with it before, and I had it rewelded as to never break again. I highly doubt that this is the problem, however maybe the community knows better, I just don't want to pay for a whole new assembly and then get it installed to have it not fix anything. One of the only other things I was reading about that I didn't do was lubricate the input shaft splines when we did the clutch. I had never done that before on any other clutch that I've put in, but apparently that's a thing? Any ideas from you guys? Any gurus around central Ohio? Once again, sorry for the long post.
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