1979 308GTS - My first Ferrari experience

To my recollection is 4-5 lbs lighter, about 25%, anyway. I wouldn't have changed it just for weight reduction, but the original one had a combo of gouges and radial cracks from a long ago pressure plate that had something broken that caused the disc to wear out unevenly on the outside when i bought the car in 1984. The diaphragm spring pulled the friction plate further away on one side vs the other causing the disc to wear in a taper, inside wasn't bad, outside was grinding rivets into the FW.

I changed the clutch disc and PP back then, and looked at the messed up flywheel and decided i could keep using it, as a new Ferrari FW was some ridiculous $$ amount from the dealer.

Since it needed to be replaced anyway, i went with a lighter weight FW.

Doug

 

BTW, I remembered those radial FW cracks one time when i missed a shift c. 1985 and As I watched the tach hit about 10.5K, RPM, and I thought about the cracks and that FW being inline with my back, and the aluminum transfer case housing wasn't a scatter shield, as my heart seemed to stop as i watched the RPM seem to ever so slowly drop back down into a sub 7K RPM range.

I had seen the results of FW explosions on a Chevy at the dragstrip once,and how the pieces of FW took off the drivers foot and punched a hole thru the dash on a 57 Chevy. That thought crossed my mind.... and wondered if maybe the firewall on the 308 was armored behind the drivers seat....seems like a good place for 2' x 3' by 1/4" thick piece of AR360 plate...

Doug