Anybody try a tilton carbon-carbon clutch?

I’m thinking about trying a tilton 2-disk carbon-carbon clutch and wondered if anyone had any experience with them. It took my new engine 3 weeks to just flat ruin the kevlar clutch I had installed a couple years ago. Norwood says they can hook me up with a new kevlar unit that will handle the hp/torque I’m making, but the solution seems to be mostly adding a lot more spring force to the pressure plate. Since this is a primarily a street car, I would prefer not to do that. The 2 disk carbon-carbon unit is supposed to be good for about 800 ft-lb torque, be as smooth and light as the stock clutch, live after slipping at up to 8000 rpm, and pretty easy and cheap to rebuild. It just sounds too good to be true, although it is pretty expensive to install. So, has anyone ever tried one?

 

The on-off thing is what I'd heard before about all the race clutches. Tilton specifally says in the descriptions of all their other clutches, including the 4.5" and 5.5" carbon-carbon, that they and not for street use. That's why I was a little surprise to see that, on the 7.25" unit, they do recomend it for "exotic/high performance street" and offer a presure plate that "pressure plate offers additional clutch modulation through a longer (20%) release travel".

http://www.tiltonracing.com/driveline/cc.html

Then with a little more searching, I found this

http://www.horsepowerfreaks.com/techarticles/clutchinstall/clutchreplacement.html

One of the high hp turbo supra guys list and rating of all the clutches he's had, and rated the the tilton unit "1- light pedal feel, very smooth and easy engagement, very expensive". The same rating as stock for feel, where other brands, got 5-10, with 10 being the worst. Could be an add for the shop he deals with though, but then I won't think he would flat say "very expensive".

It would be about $3k for the clutch assembly, then I need to make a flywheel and a few other things to get it in the car. The kelvar unit is a bolt in, costs about $800, but I know it will be a very very heavy peddle. I'd rather live with a heavy peddle than an on/off switch I think...but I want to believe the carbon unit will solve all my problems....

 

I spoke to an engineer at tilton today, he recomended the 3 disk for better life, and to put about the softest springs in the pressure plate. $3400 for the clutch, about $1000 for a flywheel and maybe a throwout bearing. I'm not sold on the idea of an ultalight flywheel on a street car, I've driven things set-up like that before and they tend to be a lot less forgiving off the line. I measured the stock flywheel and it looks like it could easily be machined to accept the new clutch. Any other thoughts on that??

I also spoke to Nick about the 2-disk clutch he has on his web sight. It uses a quarter master 7.25" with organic linings. He's never sold it for the street, but he checked with the guys at quarter master and they said it should handle 750 ft-lb torque (I'm at about 500) and would be fine on the street with a hydraulic throwout bearing. His package is about $3000 ready to bolt-on. I'm not to sure about it though...I don't see why going to a hydraulic throwout bearing fixes the on/off feeling he told me it has with a standard throwout, maybe ratios changing. And heat is alway a problem with organic linings, probably why tilton doesn't even sell them. The price bothers me a little too. The clutch assemble seems to retail at about $600, the flywheel at $1000 (tilton's 1 off price), so I'm having trouble getting to $3000. I found a 3 disk version off the clutch assemble on ebay for $185.

 

Thanks for the input everyone. The carbon clutch will be here is 7-10 days. I'm going to mount it on the stock flywheel. I haven’t decided about the throwout bearing yet. The 308 has an intermediate lever that can easily be changed to set the pedal/bearing motion ratio to almost anything, although the hydraulic is probably smoother..I still need to think about that.