A little a while ago I said that I would post pictures of the clutch job that I did on tomtom’s car. It appears to me that the B8 S4s need help with good clutches to keep up with the DSG guys and there is room for improvement! I replaced his slipping six puck clutchmasters setup with the new DXD clutch kit. There are a lot of pictures so I will show the more important ones and link to the others to try to keep it reasonable, so here goes.
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob12.jpg
The flywheel, clutch disc, and pressure plate all come out with the transmission.
This is clutchmasters six puck setup that was slipping:
- everything still together - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob13.jpg
- old flywheel - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob14.jpg
- six puck clutch disc - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob16.jpg
- pressure plate - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob15.jpg
Take a look at the throw-out bearings. The new factory bearing is on the left and the clutchmasters bearing is on the right. Do you see that huge spacer that they put on the bearing to make it long enough to reach the pressure plate fingers? No wonder that along with the aggressiveness of the six puck makes the clutch engagement like an on/off switch about an inch off the floor.
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob17.jpg
At this point I think that the clutchmasters kit is a generic kit that they slapped together to make it work for the B8 S4s. The B8 S4s with the stock heavy flywheel just don’t rev high enough or fast enough to take advantage of the six puck design. At the time that the factory clutch failed though I think that the six puck was the only option.
Then we get to the DXD clutch kit. It is advertized as OEM clutch kit with a slightly stronger pressure plate.
http://www.gmpperformance.com/index.cfm?PG=detail&PID=253796&VS=1
Here is a shot of the slightly stronger pressure plate. Notice the small green metal pressure plate springs. When I called gmp the guy told me that DXD changes the springs and the geometry of the springs to make the pressure plate stronger.
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob23.jpg
Here are the rest of the shots of the DXD clutch.
- close up of the pressure plate springs - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob24.jpg
- Clutch disc flywheel side - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob20.jpg
- Clutch disc pressure plate side - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob21.jpg
- Shiny new OEM flywheel - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob19.jpg
- Blurry cleaned transmission bell housing with new throw-out bearing - http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob18.jpg
After driving the car with the new DXD clutch it feels the same as stock since it mostly is! There is a new OEM flywheel, throw-out bearing, and old OEM shift fork so it largely is just a disc slap. I think the clutch disc in the DXD kit looks a lot like the disc used in the older JHM stage three kits but you guys can guess for yourselves how well it will work.
It amazes me how all the clutch kits for the B8s say that they come with a clutch alignment tool but when you open the box it takes a minute to go where is the tool? Neither the clutchmasters kit or DXD kit came with a clutch alignment tool. I used the input shaft as an alignment tool by eyeballing the disc to center it up and put the pressure plate bolts in finger tight then pressed the whole thing into the input shaft. The disc stayed in place enough to tighten the pressure plate bolts to full spec and then put it back in. Here is a shot of the disc lined up to the flywheel.
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Jimmybones777/B8S4clutchjob22.jpg
