I replaced mine with a spring center. I did not notice a real difference in noise. But it is grabbier (not a real word). in first and second. What I did notice though is roads with unevenness and pot holes causes momentary lapses in drive train and sudden shocks when you get back on the ground. Under acceleration. The road outside my house is nasty with patches and such. It feels like I am skipping stones with my rear end. since the demise of my Ring and Pinion. I have ceased to accelerate thru this.. as I had several broken teeth on the pinion and no real explanation why? Just a thought..

 

There's no question really...spring.

 

I have a spring centered clutch and it is very grabby, a little bit harsher on the downshift. Definetly want to match revs, which is a good idea anyway.

944Pete drove my car this weekend and we compared (he has the rubber center) and you could feel a definite difference between the two, both cars were 85.5 models.

Tifo

 

I like Tifo's clutch. (I would need to get used to it, it grabs much better than mine )
His is much lighter then mine, but I know my rubber donut is going out. I'm definitely going with a spring center when it's time.

 

I should be driving my new spring-centered car tonight for the first time since my rubber hub exploded almost 2 weeks ago. I'll post my opinion here tomorrow.

Did you guys who made the switch have to do alot of linkage adjustment to compensate for the couple of inches that the rubber hub took up?

 

255,000+ miles om my S2 clutch.
Don't know if OE was rubber or spring but I'd happily replace it with what's in there.
(What was original equipment by the way???)

 

Original equipment on all non-turbo 944's, including the 944S & 944S2 was the rubber "hockey puck" centered clutch. On all 944 turbos and the 968's, it was some variation of a spring centered clutch.

Note that the spring centered clutches aren't indestructable either: the springs over time can break, and need to be replaced. It's still a more robust clutch.

-Z.

 

Thanks, guys, great posts. My experience:

86 944 (stock clutch) went 160K miles with no problems, replaced with a stock rubber clutch center, still going strong with new owner at 50K.

91 S2 Cabriolet(stock except for a SS exhaust) - Rubber clutch became chattery in heavy traffic at 29K, mostly due to age and temperature, I believe. (It looked perfect, by the way.)

I had a spring center kit installed, and I really do not like the clutch. (harsh, noisy, grabby, chatter on downshift.)It grabs harshly on downshifts without an exact matchup of revs, and the tranny hops around and hits the bottom of the car.

I think this will eventually trash out my CVs, tranny and/or torque tube - the drivetrain is so long and has so much internal momentum to manage (lots more rotating mass than a normal car) that something has to give.

Right now my plan, since this is not a track car, is to go back to rubber. This is probably a design issue that will never be resolved on these cars - if you strengthen one link (clutch) the shock will destroy something else (differential, pinions, CVs, etc.)

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Dales944:
<strong>I should be driving my new spring-centered car tonight for the first time since my rubber hub exploded almost 2 weeks ago. I'll post my opinion here.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Hmmm, I think my spring-centered clutch is rather smooth. I have no complaints (but I had driveline backlash due to a deteriorating rubber hub for quite some time, so virtually anything would feel smooth to me).

 

I think the torque of the S2 motor, being greater than the Turbo or earlier cars, may have something to do with this. I wish my clutch were smooth, but, it isn't.