Turbo and Downpipe

[Luke]

Just a quick shot of the new turbo in place and the custom downpipe I had to make. Its stainless and is easily removable with V-band flanges.

[Jordan]

wow looks great, did you have a hard time welding the stainless at all?

[matt]

looking good, how about a shot of the intake side?

[max]

I think you should powdercoat the pipes swedish colors.

[allessence]

What are you running for the turbo? What size pipe did you run? And did you go with a seperate wastegate runner?

[Luke]

The turbo is a GT28RS. I am using an high flow internal wastegate because space is tight on the 99. The downpipe is 3" and it steps down to 2.5 at the floor pan for good ground clearance.

[Luke]

Holy Jesus! thats all I can say. I got the car back together and went out for a spin with the new turbo. Right now I have the wastegate set for about 12 PSI and I am going to have to turn the boost WAY down to get some drivability out of this thing, its ridiculusly fast.

The bad news:
The new kevlar clutch is slipping badly. I am going to turn the boost down but Im still afriad its going to be slipping. Ugh. Only 2 weekends to get this set for RNY so I've got to figure something out. These 9000 clutch pressure plates really seem to have no clamping force, I think i'd be better off with a 900 one honestly.

[Crazyswede]

are you running the puck clutch? If you are and it is still slipping then something else is wrong. The 9000 flywheel, pressure plate, and clutch should easily hold 250 - 300 hp....Perhaps your boost comes on so violently that it is jerking it free.

[matt]

There has got to be some sort of discrepancy there, the stock 9000 turbo clutch holds 225hp all day long in an aero and there are guys with stage 4 software running stock clutches and that's 306 hp and around 360 lb.ft. or torque. Could the flywheel friction surface be too low? Could you machine some material off the flywheels mounting surface so that the pressure plate will sit closer to the flywheel and provide more clamping?

At this point it might be better to get back to the 900 clutch until we can get this sorted out completely.

It's highly unlikely the boost comes on fast enough to cause slippage, there has to be something else at work here.

[Luke]

Well I am using a 86-90 9000 turbo clutch, not a 91 up which is larger still and has a different bolt pattern. I am thinking that these pressure plates from eeuroparts are just crap because this new disk should have a lot of friction. The steel insert in the flywheel sits flush with the body of the flywheel which is how it should be. Unfortunatly I sent my flywheel with the 900 pattern back to swedish dynamics because it had a loose ring gear so I will have to use something 9000 based.

[matt]

how much free play is there when the throw out bearing is fully engaged? What about when it's fully disengaged? Could we (you and John ) make a new steel insert to increase the pressure from the pressure plate on the disk? Would that even work or would it create too much pressure even when you push the clutch pedal in? Could the problem be related to the 9000 pressure plate and the 900 slave cylinder/throwout bearing?????

Maybe the best option would be a stock flywheel and 900 turbo clutch? I would rather compete with a solid clutch (and maybe less boost and power) than have to wonder if we'll have a problem.

I'm sure people have used the same clutch components you've got in the car without problems, so I'm confused what the issue is. It seems unlikely that two flywheels would be bad, two clutch disks would be faulty or that two pressure plates wouldn't generate enough pressure so we have to consider anything damn thing that even comes close to touching the clutch or it's operation.

[Jordan]

If the pressure plates have weak fingers no matter how sticky the clutch pack is, its not really going to help any more. On the optimisitic side, maybe the clutch just needs to bed in a little bit?

[Crazyswede]

The good setup to run in a 900 and probably the 99 is the 90 - 93 900 flywheel with turbo clutch...or the 86-89 9000 turbo clutch...or you can spend the money on the aero clutch which is a little bigger yet, but more expensive. Have you considered throwing a lightened stock saab flywheel on and running a puck clutch? Figure a stock lightened flywheel to be around 15lbs....might help smooth out impulses in boost and keep everything gripping. I know the puck clutch that geoff had was super strong and was almost impossible to slip.

[matt]

the new pressure plate shouldn't have weak fingers, the fact that the new disk has a puck design on one side should help to increase clamping psi as well (at least a little). I'm totally stumped with this damn problem.

[Luke]

Yeah I dont get it either. Different flywheel, different clutch plate, new PP and still bad slipping. The one thing I can say though, the pedal feel really weak, my only explanation is these new pressure plates suck.
I have an old MSS 4 puck clutch thats painful to drive and I think ruined 2 transmissions due to shock loading but it dosent slip and maybe im a better driver now? That will be a last resort. I'm researching for an uprated pressure plate.