JHM Stage 4 Clutch and LWFW Review

B5 S4/ RS4
#1

First let me say that JHM has been a wonderful company and always helped me with both the cars i’ve had since the first time i pulled up unannounced years ago. JHM is a great company to always have around which is why I support them as much as I can. I feel lucky that im close to a company that primarily stocks S4 parts ready to go on there shelf, which saves me and others time from waiting long periods of time when your car is down or in need of something simple.

I have personally driven a few B5 S4 cars with your typical Stage 3 B5 RS4 pressure plate, clutch, and flywheel combo. I know the performance, reliability, and drivability has been pleasing to many others in the past and has done its job well… till now.

Before I bought my first B5 S4 recently I had the pleasure of driving Jason’s JHM/Vortech supercharged B6 S4 and his B5 S4 with the new JHM Stage 4 Clutch and Flywheel combo and instantly fell in love with it!

Feel: The pedal is more smooth and doesn’t have that weird clutch pop feel of the stage 3 B5 rs4 clutch plus there is less pedal effort. This clutch and smoother, not hard to push, and releases closer to a stock style clutch. Im still breaking in the clutch and getting used to it but it chatters very very little at rpms around 1000-1100, but could just be me.

Engagement/shifts: I have the 034 Track Density engine and transmission mounts, JHM DTS and all the full JHM shifter upgrade treatment so I can feel every little detail making it easy to pinpoint and diagnose issues if I have them. the disk is a Feramic on the flywheel side and Kevlar on the pressure plate. The shifts are great! Never any weird engage/disengage feel. just great JHM clutch and flywheel combo :slight_smile:

Pros:
New technology clutch
better material
metal components instead of plastic (pressure plate
Feramic/Kevlar disk
Holds 18% more clamp load over the stage 3 B5 rs4 pressure plate
Bolt on flywheel that is setup correctly for the OEM B7 RS4 pressure plate
Great price

Cons:
None

Oh BTW, I fell in love after scratching second on a 1-2 power shift @ 18 psi with K04s after making sure it was broken in. Skeet Skeet.

#2

This uses some of the B7 RS4 parts, right? A friend had his clutch fail recently (VAST stage III) which used the B5 RS4 parts. Apparently something to do with the pressure plate sucking. B7 RS4 parts should eliminate that…the B7 RS4 clutch setup is excellent.

p.s. did you already break that clutch in??? So you bought the car, pulled the engine, put the new engine in with the old stage III setup, changed the clutch/flywheel, and are already broken in? Man…you don’t fuck around!

Get a vid launching out in front of JHM. I was looking on google satellite the other day at JHM’s location on murphy parkway trying to see if there are AWD burnout patches in the parking lot lol

#3

Yes its a B7 RS4 pressure plate which has metal parts in the SAC instead of plastic like the old stage 3 B5 S4 styles did. The old clutch that came with this car was a VAST stg 3 B5 S4 clutch, it had about 50% life left on it, still fine, but I drive like Jason and wanted my shit bullet proof. So while I had the engine pulled I went ahead and threw in the JHM Stage 4 Clutch and LWFW… out with old, in with the new.

I will get some vids after I get the exhaust done and the new water/meth kit.

lol! yeah theres some rubber marks out there. You should see how long the burnout marks are from Jay’s B5 S4. Holy shit! That car is nasty now dude. It has his 4:1 diff and the cars back end jumps sideways lol. looks like a drifting launch, Sick as hell!

Oh, and yes the clutch has about 500-600 miles on it now. At first it chatters very very little. But now that its broken in, its nice and smooth like stock, love it.

#4

oh, cool.

p.s. fucking traitor!

:slight_smile:

Go to Sac with Dan this weekend. Show us something. Have you already got the JHM tune on there? If not, you should race Dan’s Rs4 and get some video. Stage III vs. JHM RS4 is a race lots of people would like to see.

#5

nice writeup, I orignally thought you got the sac free clutch… I want my clutch to be sac-less

#6

Sakimano - Haha, you sold your shit too so join the club lol. Hes going this weekend? I may have to go, my shit is slow though lol. Yes I already have JHM tune, its an old file, he may have a update ill have to see

Beemercer - This clutch is pretty nice dude, they are working on a Non SAC clutch but it may not be as street friendly. If they get a new one without the SAC ill test her out for ya :wink:

#7

Hi Rod, I read on the other place that you’ve got no chatter; something to do with breaking it in right. Any tips? I’m breaking in my new clutch (although on a B6).

Love your car BTW.

#8

Saki’s right you really dont mess around…

Nice write up, would be useful if I had a manual :-[

Cant wait to see the vids…

#9

Bangoman - By chatter I mean the initial slip of engagement from a stop is smooth, and not the vibration that you get under 2,000 rpms. the vibration with LWFW’s will be there with 90% of the time, cant help you there. to eliminate that you need to use a steel or OEM flywheel. But those are lame since we are performance junkies, so moving on. haha ;D

My drive consists of 7 miles each way to work, 6 of it being city and then 1 when I jump on and off the freeway. In town I never reved above 2,000rpms when taking off, this is important since you dont want to get the clutch toasty when its brand new, keep the revs down when you take off from a stop, lower the better. the stage 4 disc is a ceremic on the flywheel side and kevlar on the PP side, yes ceramic likes heat but you must first embed it, thats why clutches need a break-in period so they can settle in its new home.

Once the clutch is engaged and the pedal is fully out you can floor it all you want, you wont hurt it one bit once its engaged. Freeway miles dont count when breaking in a clutch since its engaged. Its the city driving that breaks it in. If you get stuck in traffic no worries just use the clutch and no gas or as little throttle as possible so your not constanly revving and heating the crap out of the clutch.Audis are sweet in that manor since they idle up a little bit when you engage the clutch from a stop.

So biggest points are:
-Dont rev it high when taking off, slipping the clutch a large amount will heat your clutch and cause poor break in and lower the life of any clutch in that matter

  • City driving is what you need, not freeway. I never drive my car long distances so it never generally gets really hot, but all my driving I do on a regular basis is city, so lots of stop and go

  • No Launching! Do not launch your car. harshly droping the clutch during break-in is a big no no.

Install:

  • Make sure your flywheel surface is super clean, free of grease, locktite, fingerprints, all that stuff. I acetoned my entire flywheel and then before install I brake cleaned the surface.

  • Torque to spec and properly is VERY important, do it right, do it once. Failing to do so means you’ll be unhappy and have to do it again. Be sure to check the alignment tool as it should slide in and out FREELY. Use locktite on the bolts to the PP and flywheel

  • (SAC clutches) make sure its reset :slight_smile:

I went way overboard with this buts its usefull stuff for the site.

p.s. What clutch set-up do you have?

#10

Thanks for the reply Rod, that is very useful and reassuring. I’m breaking in the JHM stage 4 LWFW/clutch combo. I toasted my stock B6 clutch at 138000km (85k in real money). There’s a pic of the wear in the pic of the day thread (http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/5295/img20111018170718.jpg). With hindsight, it was obvious that I’d fallen into the lazy habit of slipping/riding the clutch esp stop-1-2 and I suspect I accelerated its destruction.

I say I am reassurred by your comments because I am indeed setting off from idle or just above and it is entirely city driving. I must admit to taking routes with more stop signs so I can actively reteach myself clutch control and stop slipping the clutch so much. My only concern is in reverse gear; it’s too damn fast with the left pedal all the way up! Definitely no launching, even if it means waiting longer for gaps in traffic.

Install - this was done by my local indy with specific orders to follow the JHM instructions to the letter. There were certainly no parts left. Only time will tell if the install was good but I trust them, they’re good guys. They were absolutely gushing over the JHM LWFW and the SS (“it’s like a Ferrari!”).

#11

Glad this helped you some, How are you liking the clutch? any input is great.

With the reverse just push the clutch back in and coast, about all you can really do to control reverse speed :-\

When it is broken in after the recommended mark, when you do want to get nasty and beat on it be aggressive with the engagement, dont baby it and slowly let it out. high revs and slow engagement will toast the clutch, but im sure you learned that the hard way :wink:

#12

I like the clutch… because it works! In all seriousness, I’m no racer nor do I think am I any kind of driving god - the clutch is just so easy to drive smoothly for one that is a performance product. I’ve driven a modded Evo 8 (cousin’s) with a similarly upgraded clutch and that was tricky to say the least.

Thanks for the advice on the after break in - very useful to hear other’s experiences. I wasn’t much into high revs for engagment, but I was into slow engagement.

#13

How many KMS are you at now bango?

#14

330km :frowning: need to do more aimless wandering around the city.

#15

Good to hear. yes its very smooth for the amount of power it can hold.

#16

Yes I have to say I would never admit this on other forums. But I tosted a clutch in one of my other cars thinking tht slow engagement was safer on the clutch. Turns out all I did was hot spot it on the brake in. I had to pulll the transmission because I cracked the case. When I pulled the transmission I found out that I did a for shit job of brakeing in the clutch

#17

bad boi ^ ;D

It happens, we live and learn with trial and error. Ive done it

#18

Just out of curiosity how much power will this clutch hold? Will it support ~500+ wheel?

#19

WTQ is what you need to worry about.

I’d be inclined to think that would be safe though noznab. JHM is using their B5 setup on Jay’s car currently with RS6 turbos, running race gas etc. Car is very strong.

If you look on the JHM webpage they outline some of the torque limits I believe for the various clutch setups.

#20

My car had the vast stage 4 in it B5 RS4 plate. It held 496awftlbs with K04s on E85 on a Detroit dyno just fine. I sent a brand new one out to Jason at AMD, it let loose on its third dyno pull at 54X awftlbs. I would bet the new RS4 stuff could hold 550ftlbs. Just my speculation. And according to saki dynos lie more than Obama does so…