Jaye Bass

So yesterday I was doing the Sunday morning drive during which I decided to do a big ugly launch at a stop light. Brought the revs up, dropped the clutch and zing the rev counter went to 7k but the car was hardly moving. Quickly got off the throttle, engaged the clutch and pulled away from the light smoothly with no issues. Of course, within seconds I smell clutch. I parked the car, let it cool off and decided it was ok so I drove home. It drives ok with no issue from the clutch in normal driving (have not tried an aggressive launch since).

I would like some educated speculation as to what I'm might be dealing with here. Obviously there is some sort of issue with the clutch. Why do you suppose that the clutch spun on me like that but otherwise drove normally? I've had the car for a month. It has performed flawlessly until the launch incident yesterday. It has 39K miles and seems to be in tip top shape. Its a 92 C2 Coupe build date is 11/91.

johnsjmc

Your clutch was slipping . It might still have lots of normal miles left. The 911 has never been good at drag racing. transmission and clutch damage is easy because the rear has such good traction. If you want to drag race buy a used Mustang or Camaro. You can get one for the average cost of a clutch replacement in a 964

Jaye Bass

Spare me the pretentious sermon.

johnsjmc

Hardly a pretentious sermon. Anyone who has to ask what happened needs to know what I said. I,m a retired certified technician and mechanics instructor with about 40 yrs experience and have owned a dozen 911's and 930's from 1967 to my present 993.. having driven these cars almost continuously since 1972 . A 911 clutch typically lasts about 65000 mi and I have seen original clutches in 993's and 964's last over 100k.
Early failure is caused by abuse like you described above. Stop showing off and you can probably still get a lot more miles out of the existing clutch. That's my educated opinion.
With 26 posts and a month of ownership I assume you are new to a 911 and are unaware of the failure modes inherent to the drivetrain

Jaye Bass

Yea the info is appreciated. The delivery mechanism was not. I'll ignore the snark and take your advice.

johnsjmc

Not really meant to be snarky . I just replaced an original clutch in a 993 with 111,000 mi. a few months ago. The clutch had a build date of 1994 on it so it was an original. About $2500 in parts (new flywheel ,disc,pressure plate ,throwout brg. ) Add in the rear seal,valve cover gaskets, oil and tune up parts plus about 16 hrs labour and you really can buy a used Mustang for the same as a clutch.

Jaye Bass

What's going on makes perfect sense, if I think about it for 10 seconds. Rear weight bias, new Toyo R1R's, etc. Yes, I determined last night that a new clutch would be expensive. So again thanks for the data.

FeralComprehension

It's your car, drive it like you want. I don't get the 'never seen rain' guys either; hell, I love my C4 in the snow.

Too much slip will heat up the disk and you'll not get engagement until it cools; whether or not it fully recovers is dependent on the material. Luck!

CBR786

once one of my cars sadly gone now had been involved in a non fault collision and the insurer was coming the next day to take it away for good as it was beyond repair.

I took this opportunity to take the car to a local car park and do burn outs and doughnuts (Circles) in the this large car park. before I said good bye to this car.

I had low thread on the rear tyres so they where good as slicks which in the dry meant really solid rear grip. I tried everything to get my rears to spin and could not do it all I was left with was clutch smell. I managed to do doughnuts but the circles where not neat round circles but more like large circles the car has tremendous grip in the rear and to get to loose the rear end requires some what less friction on the rear tyres to make them give. I guess a few cup fulls of diesel oil on the rear threads would have made for an intresting afternoon of spinning lol.

In the end my clutch got so hot I lost drive and had to switch off car and wait for and hour before I was able to re drive the car.

I guess you can abuse your car but be prepared for the issues that come with that. I was not too concerned as the next day the car was collected and never seen again.

barney55

I love doing the traffic light grand prix as well,but i never drop the clutch at high revs!

My method i pull away slowly clutch is fully out by about 20 mph then i BOOT it

until 6000 rpm,then into 2nd gear BOOT it again, 60 mph comes up fast.

Job done, no strain on the Clutch. well it works for me,wet or dry.You should see the faces of the other drivers when i do it in the WET.

They can't believe it didn't slide.........haha

sml

wow .. his advice was quite helpful with a cool joke.

FeralComprehension

Nope. Agree with OP. Info is welcome; editorial adds nothing.

Jaye Bass

Well that's what I usually do. The super sticky Toyo's were exacerbating the slippage. Live and learn...die and forget it.

-nick

Jaye- I did almost the same a few years ago. Doing a moderate rpm quick take off and I got quite a lot of slip. Not sure how many miles I've put on the car since, but as long as I let the clutch out before giving it gas I haven't had a problem. You could have lots of miles still left in the clutch. Maybe they just don't bite very hard in general?

barney55

Yes i love the smell of burning clutch in the morning......

I think it's a rite of passage with 964 owners (don't know about other models)

About 7 yrs ago i tried a high rev take off,and the clutch smell was bad,but

fingers crossed and with nearly 100,000 miles on the original clutch,it's still ok.

I never did it again.

I think there was a bit on Top Gear years ago where they had a 911 on the race track but were absolutely BANNED from doing any high rev burnouts/takeoffs.

After 14 years of ownership i still love my car to bits.