clutch and pis setting

What is your driving style ? 9,000 miles on a clutch is awfully LOW.

What decided the PIS should be 3.8 ? did you request it be set at that, or did the tech decide it after driving the car with different settings and letting the car tell the tech what the PIS should be ? I wanted a lower PIS setting when I bought my 360 based on reading here, the tech set it and told me it was not working right and should be higher, he was right. There is no hard and fast PIS number, the car will tell you what it should be, its only a range.

 

Are getting a "kicking" feeling when it does go into gear? Those two attributes would indicate a PIS that is too tight.

 

Its awfully low for most cars, but its only kinda low for a F1 360, or so Algar techs have told me (they say 14-16k for F1s are about the norm).

FWIW, my 3-pedal 360 only got 8800 miles on its first clutch (per the service records -- it was a different owner at the time)

 

At that wear reading, clutch behavior may be less than ideal. I personally would've tried a less aggressive PIS possibly. Perhaps 4.0 or so.

I would ask to loosen up on the PIS, perhaps you can get some more driving in before you get the clutch replaced.

8800mi on a manual trans is definitely very short. More careful driving technique should help extend life some.

 

Clutch whamming into gear with authority isn't a bad thing. I've never ever heard anyone say they get a silky smooth shift when they're getting after it.

 

I would think that if had previous slipping issues and tried to adjust the PIS and now it's having more issues you would want to put a clutch in it ASAP. By lowering the PIS you might cause the clutch to last longer but you also might cause trans syncro wear. Also the wear % factor is only as good as the person that set it last time it was replaced. I find that if technicians have clutch issues they often reset everything, including the wear percentage, so that's often not accurate.

 

There are minimum thickness specs in the workshop manual that need to be used to determine if the flywheel can nto be surfaced and needs to be replaced.

Sometimes they cup due to the heat and not enough material can be cut to restore the surface.

Be sure they explain the condition of the flywheel properly and the reason for determining to replace it or resurface it.

 

I guess Algar's drivers really abuse their clutches.

My 360 F1 got 38,000 miles on its first clutch. Its current clutch has 17,000 miles on it and has 65% remaining clutch life (actually 68% to be exact). Car has 55,000 miles on it.

At Algar's mileage I would be putting in new clutches every 18months and no way I could afford that.

 

When they told me that, I thought it seemed low too, but they all agreed that was the norm, and I don't think it has anything to do with abuse. The clutch is right in the middle of everything in this car/model and is subject to a lot of heat. The clutch plates don't really wear out, its the forks on the pressure plate that lose their spring (either due to heat cycles or just a bad design), the flywheel that gets a little glazed or heat damaged in other ways, and the subsequent chattering and movement of the point of engagement that follows. The TO bearing also has these tiny little seals which have to be assembled by the tech and he told me that the design isn't really problematic, but it is tricky and its easy to put the seals on backwards and if a tech does that, they leak prematurely, which also results in early replacement. The TO bearings themselves are sealed but also dry up (due to heat) and that results in heavy pedal effort.

I saw all the parts on my clutch, which was 4 years old and had 20-some kmiles on it (I can't remember now). There was still a good amount of clutch material left, but the pressure plate forks were tired looking, the flywheel had a few hotspots, and the TO bearing spun very roughly. The was no evidence of leakage in the bell housing. My point of engagement was moving on me, the pedal effort was high, and the clutch would chatter a bit on take-up, all of which caused me to replace it, and all of which the techs told me was typical of how they wear out with age, heat, time and why they usually need to be replaced at the intervals cited.

Others have agreed with this as well and the proof is in the service record history of mine (and I'm sure other) cars. If you got that many miles out of your F1 car you were lucky and/or drove many highway miles. The other thing to keep in mind is that Algar is in the Philly metro area which has a lot of traffic and a lot more drivers who subject their cars to more shifting (whether F1 or manual) than owners in more rural areas, so that may affect their opinion/observations as well.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=378741

 

true about traffic, I avoid it like the plague. My work schedule is 8-5 but on days I drive the 360 to work I work 7:30-4:30 to avoid the traffic. I tend to work the 7:30 schedule a LOT and my boss is lets me shift my hours around without warning. The other day, my wife and I were in L.A. and pulled off the freeway for a early dinner, just to avoid rush hour stop-go traffic, found a nice couscous place and waited out the traffic for a little over 1 hour.

 

I adjusted the PIS on my 2000 Modena so i can have less clutch engagment. Indeed car start rolling at lower rpms from stop and gear shifting on normal mode has become a bit faster. Also noticed some jerking with first gear and very low speed, below 10mph.
Now jerking has gone and i find the gearbox a bit sluggish. Is it possible that PIS needs readjustment?

 

I have a strange issue with my car since I got it. Sometimes with the first start of the day, the car will kick when I put it into gear. Apparently the clutch drags a little. I'm sure that's really bad for the clutch. When this occurs I just shut the car off and immediately restart it, and it works perfectly normal after that.
Any idea what that would be? Do I have a bad sensor? It only does it when it's cold, and it happens only once every week or two.

 

How about doing a visual inspection through the access ports with a borescope to determine if you really need a new clutch?

 

Hi Terry,

On the 360, I did not know there was an inspection port. Do you know where to locate it?

Regards,

Steve

 

Steve,
I'm pretty sure that the inspection port is that plate on the bottom with the holes in it. Not positive though.

 

can somebody explain some of the available activations on an F1 transmission and also when replacing a clutch and not knowing what has been adjusted by others what are some of the things that need to be addressed to make sure the new clutch is set up properly other than running the 'clutch replacement' routine and a self learn routine?
Here are some of the ones Im wondering about
Engagement strokes control
Selection run control
Actuator centering
Actuator drain
Clutch actuator purge
Engagement/selection actuators drainage
Slipping start position

 

I have 40k miles on my F1 clutch and still over 50% life left. If you live in San Francisco, it might last a week.

 

That's the problem with F1 settings, if someone before your reset the clutch without replacing it the readout on lining thickness gets skewed. When I had the 2005 F430 and it didn't engage properly on take off, I took it to Ferrari and they said the computer is saying 60% life left on the clutch but the way it drives indicates its toast, that most likely someone reset it without changing the clutch. I thought the Ferrari computer read a real time reading but the wear bases off the initial set point. They can monitor all the other functions you mentioned like the bleed down rate of the actuator and what not, I think that scudding relay does the same thing as well, but will just give you warnings if the rates exceed the factory parameters.

 

Having driven my old 360 in SF many times I can say that the hills are not such an issue. The real issue is the roads and incline transitions. You go from roughly flat to steep and it is worse than a driveway BUT it is the road. And the pot holes. And the parking sucks.

 

Look at Aldous' site if you really want to know how to set PIS on a 360, F430, or any F1 system clutch. The trick is to get the lowest PIS possible without the output shaft moving. Takes a little fiddling, but that will give you the best results for both clutch life and starts.