Kevlar clutch with 360 F1?

The search function is your friend on this one. Lots of discussion and experience over the years concerning Kevlar and carbon fiber clutches around here. General consensus from experience is that they can be made to work and sometimes last longer than OEM but always require ECU reprogramming to make those things happen. The existing ECU is carefully coordinated with the surface friction characteristics of the OEM clutch plate. That means substitution of other materials can seriously unbalance the system causing harsh jerky shifting and accelerated wear of the clutch plate and/or flywheel.

 

Thanks for starting this thread. I'm interested in collecting the same details and was looking at the FX300 kevlar clutch at Vivid Racing for my 2001 360 F1 when I need a new clutch.

As I understand it with little research so far, the kevlar will last 30-40%+ longer, but can be more jerky, at least in the 1-2 shift. I'm not sure how much smoothness is sacrificed, if any.

I also want to upgrade to a CS TCU, so am trying to keep that in mind. I'm not particularlly concerned if my car shifts silky smooth. I like a little kick in the shifts .

 

Guys I had this clutch in my 360 for over 12k miles. The car is now sold. Kind of sucks being ferrari-less currently. Back to topic:

I had the clutch masters FX300 in my car and had no issues, the car was inspected before I sold it and after 12,000 miles still have 58% clutch life. I'm enjoyed the car and wasn't babied nor was it abused. I still think this is great life for the clutch.

Didn't have any issues with shifting etc, you will have to re-adjust the clutch with an SD3 once its installed but you would need to do this with a new factory clutch.

If I can be of any help please let me know.

 

I fitted one a year back. Personaly, i didn't like the way it shifted so we upgraded the tcu to cs and it set up a treat. He uses the car regularly with no issues. We did put a new flywheel in, which i would strongly advise, and i don't like surfaced flywheels on the 360's as they are tapered and tricky to machine correctly. It's a hell of a lot of work to take it apart again if it doesn't drive right!

 

Thanks for the input. Was your car an F1 or 3 pedal manual? Sounds like you had an F1 from your description but you didn't say so explicitly.

 

Sorry yes was an F1. If you are doing this upgrade with a 6spd I would also do the lightweight flywheel. It definitely will help the car rev out quicker and find better improvement in rev matching.

Hopefully can get some people that have the lightweight flywheel to comment.

 

Thanks. Is there anyone else that has went with non-traditional Ferrari part clutchs for thier 360s? I'd love to hear feed back and pros/cons of the available options out there for 360 clutchs for F1.

 

I will try to find the company, they said with regards to F1 Tranny they had trouble installing a Kevlar clutch.

Vivid however says no trouble. Guess you would need to get owner feedback.

My neighbor got 30k miles on his first clutch, but that is unusual and all depends on how you drive the car, starts especially.

 

From what I've learned the OEM clutch is a pretty good and reliable piece of kit so unless there was quite a significant cost saving to be had from choosing a well regarded alternative I think I'd simply swap out for new OEM.

As Rusty has said, there's a fairly significant amount of work involved in changing a clutch and you really don't want to have to do it on the double!

 

30K isn't all that unusual. I was at 24K and only changed the clutch because I was down there for other things.

 

I thoguht the OEM clutch parts is like $3k. The FX300 kevlar one is about $1150 and is supposed to last longer. That is a huge difference.

My car's first clutch lasted 16.5k miles with it's prior owners (which was 75% wear readout but it started neutral jumping between gears per the notes). It looks like the second clutch (Ferrari OEM installed by Ferrari dealership) isn't going to last much longer than that either. I'm sure a majority of that is down to the 2001 TCU, but afaik there is/was no excessive stop/go, reverse, creep, uphill ect. 16.5k miles per clutch really sucks, which is mostly why I want a CS TCU and kevlar clutch option if it'll work well.

 

Mike, as you know, my car is jumping to N as well. It has acted extremely sensible for the past week, until yesterday when it started doing it today. (I have come up with a theory of my own as to why it does that, but that is for another thread).
Anyway, the OEM is more like half what you think bro. Part number 201680, Ricambi has it for ~1.55k

Personally, I would install the OEM clutch, but go with the HE throwout bearing as there seems to be a consensus among the people I trust on the HE's superiority.

I have been reading over and over about how bad the 2000-2001 TCU is, but seriously is it that bad? Is a CS TCU worth THAT much money really?

 

When I had my 360, I was shopping clutches before I decided to trade it instead. I came across, somewhere here "I think", an alternating kevlar ceramic hybrid that was supposed to give you the durability of kevlar without the neck jarring grippiness. Wasn't all that much either, like $2k. Email Josh of ECS at [email protected]. I didn't save the details on it, but I'd be surprised if he didn't. Do that, and the Formula Dynamics remapping and that's the way I was headed. Josh is here, too, joshofecs or joshatecs or something like that.

 

Try this...

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=302995&highlight=kevlar+ceramic