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Not sure what happened on the screen name above. My question is: The flywheel on my 91 348 (twin disc clutch) needs all the plastic parts replaced including the spring holders, spring spacers, and the flat plates. MDclutches has everything but the plates. Does anybody have any idea where I can source these parts? My 348 is stuck sitting in the garage until I get the parts needed to finish the clutch job.
I wouldn't. I had the entire system, flywheel, pumpkin etc replaced by MD and had nothing but trouble ever since to a point where its no fun to drive. Going to swap out for a different one this year.
Ya, the conversion is around $3k from another supplier. Not really wanting to spend $3k for a single clutch conversion when all I need to do is get the discs re-lined and a couple of plastic parts. I'll draw the parts up in cad and have a machine shop cnc them out of the proper material for a lot less before I spend $3k on a simple clutch job. Here is my question, what will other 348 owners do when these small plastic items eventually wear down? Is every 348 owner with the dual clutch going to have to fork up $3k on a clutch that may or may not be just another problem as wda24729 describes?
I called up Valeo USA, and they don't have anything States side as far as replacing the plastic bits. On a side note, Valeo is making replacement solid flywheels to replace the old dual mass flywheel in other brands. I asked the tech support guy if they were making the replacements for Ferraris = no, not that he has heard of.
From your old unit? I still have my old until in Cali. Maybe we FINALLY weld that sucker up. Whatcha say Chubbalard? Do we have an old school Stoogefest? I'm out there the end of this month. Let me know.
Here are the specific parts I'm looking for. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I wonder if you could have someone 3D print these? I have some friends printing carbon fiber threads.
I don't think carbon would work. I think the material mdclutches uses for the new internals is Polyamide 6.6. Its very tough. 3d printers arent capable if this yet (household models at least) but it can be cnc machined. If I can get my hands on them Im going to try to get them drawn into a cad file, see about ordering the material, and making these bits for the 348 community. First, I need the bits!
What if you could get your hands on this material? http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/139733524-post43.html those parts look very similar to the Vesconite Daniel mentions in the post above...
Darn I don't have the plastic bits. I must have given them away. I raced for years with a home made welded flywheel pack that not only got rid of the plastic but the springs and grease and a lot of weight. If you search old threads I posted about it. So if you want to go that route it works and is zero maintenance and increases performance.
Ernie is going to see what he has in his old clutch in a couple weeks. It's possible he may have a few whole pieces. Does anybody have a spare flywheel that may have a few of these bits laying around? If I can get my hands on a few of them I could get them drawn up and the have a local machine shop I know of CNC them out of the appropriate material. and I would offer these parts to the 348 community so nobody else has to go through this. PM me if you have any of the following: Short spring end piece Long spring end piece Spring spacer Flat pads
You rock and that would be awesome as I'm sure some of us are going to be in the same pickle as you in the future. I'm working to find a 3D imager contact from a couple of my friends as well.
Major update: I have a meeting Monday morning with a local company who can assist with plastic injection molding. I'm hoping to be able to get a small lot created for all the plastic bits for the 348 and perhaps even the 355 eventually. I will have a better idea of the cost involved in the setup of the parts later Monday and that will be the major determining factor on if this proceeds or not since I will be fronting the funds to start this project. Here are a few bullet points: 1. How can this be done without interfering with any patents Ferrari has? I'm not trying to steal business from Ferrari, I just want to drive my car!!! 2. Can anybody send me at least one of each of the plastic parts? I don't necessarily need them by Monday but the sooner the better. 3. Would anybody in the community be interested in assisting in offsetting the cost of production by perhaps pre-ordering a complete kit once it has been determined this is feasable and cost effective? 4. What would these kits be worth to current owners? Is $300-500 per complete kit of plastic parts for the flywheel an attractive option? I'm not really looking to make money off of this, I just hope to recover the costs of manufacturing in a reasonable amount of time.
I will have to look at what I did. It was over a decade ago and I only vaguely remember the process. I had to lathe cut the spider off which dumped out a lot of weight. I did some simple welding then had a balancing service balance the unit...voila. It was pretty simple. Let me do Ernie's, if we can get together this month, and if you decide to go the welded approach I can do it. The cost would sure be a lot less. The balancing was cheap and the disposable cutting tool is cheap too like I'm thinking under a 100 bucks. Shipping might be the highest single cost. I think the FW pack lost 8 or so pounds without making off the line starting more difficult or idle funky. But I felt more off the corners grunt from the lighter FW pack but I was racing and the motor lived in the upper RPM's.
I'd interested in the plastic bits... I ain't paying to bring Ernie and FBB to the east coast...though I'm sure we'd have a rousing good time! Mobilized reply by Dahveedem
It is a Voith dual mass flywheel. Ferrari bought it and they have no patents on it. It is also an ancient design so even Voiths patent protection should at this point be long dead. I was talking to a manufacturer the other day about replicating some Ferrari parts and that came up. He told me it is not an issue for the types of things we were talking about.
