A number of DSMers have complained about the springs in their ACT clutch popping out and ruining their clutch and flywheel. Almost all of these people had few miles on their setup and even took the precaution of breaking it in as the manufacturer suggested. If you have suffered from a failed ACT clutch like this, we want to know. Please only vote/post in this thread if you've had this happen. No need to post your name below, as we can see who voted in the poll. We want to get an idea of how many people this has happened to. We may want to print out the list of names at a later date to show ACT that this isn't a fluke.

Mine broke after only 250 miles of break-in as per manufacturers suggestions. Total damage is unknown as of now, but the engine won't turn over because it is locked up in the bell housing.

Thanks again Chris.

I have setup a new thread at Vendor-Review.com. this thread
The list from is now being continued here. Please PM me with your name, car, date of incident and approx. time and miles after installation before the clutch failed.

I have had 3 ACT clutches and never had a failure, all were street disc modeld with springs. Two on my Talon one on my VR6. I sell and install about 30 ACT clutches a year and have never the springs pop out of one ever.

I had a spring pop out of my competly stock Hyundai clutch in my winter beater, and had springs pop out of Bully Performance clutches and Clutch Masters once in a while.

The problem your going after ACT for is common to happen among all types of clutches. Fact of the matter is many of us are WAY over the rating of our 2100lbs / street disc combo of 322ft/lbs at the flywheel. Thats just 100ft/lbs more at the flywheel then stock disc is rated for.

I feel for you guys who have had a problem tho, changing clutches because of manufacturer defect on an AWD car really sucks. Anyways just thought I would post my successs I have had with ACT regardless.

DSMJim said:

The problem your going after ACT for is common to happen among all types of clutches. Fact of the matter is many of us are WAY over the rating of our 2100lbs / street disc combo of 322ft/lbs at the flywheel. Thats just 100ft/lbs more at the flywheel then stock disc is rated for.

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I aggree with you, but in my specific application I was running 10psi on a big28... after 250 miles the thing broke (2600, not 2100) and I'm sure I wasn't pushing over 300ft/lbs... I'm more mad that I only got to drive it for 3 days than anything else. Hopefully this gets fixed quick and easy.

DSMJim said:

I have had 3 ACT clutches and never had a failure, all were street disc modeld with springs. Two on my Talon one on my VR6. I sell and install about 30 ACT clutches a year and have never the springs pop out of one ever.

I had a spring pop out of my competly stock Hyundai clutch in my winter beater, and had springs pop out of Bully Performance clutches and Clutch Masters once in a while.

The problem your going after ACT for is common to happen among all types of clutches. Fact of the matter is many of us are WAY over the rating of our 2100lbs / street disc combo of 322ft/lbs at the flywheel. Thats just 100ft/lbs more at the flywheel then stock disc is rated for.

I feel for you guys who have had a problem tho, changing clutches because of manufacturer defect on an AWD car really sucks. Anyways just thought I would post my successs I have had with ACT regardless.

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Thank you for you insight, JIM. The problem with the clutch seems to be only a small percentage, but those who were affected deserve something, at least an apology from ACT.

I contacted the owner of Import Racing, here in Germany. He said that he would assist in looking into my incident and give his professional opinion why the clutch failed.

laserspeeddemon said:

but those who were affected deserve something, at least an apology from ACT.

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That would be nice, mostly b/c it was a pain in the ass to take my tranny off 3 days after putting my motor back into the car. I understand that mistakes happen though. I'm guessing by the type of problem I had and other people had that it was a problem with the metal content of the inner part of the disk. I'm sure it's been fixed already. I'll be putting my new disk in tomorrow and will let all of you know how great it is.

laserspeeddemon said:

Thanks again Chris.

I have setup a new thread at Vendor-Review.com. this thread
The list from is now being continued here. Please PM me with your name, car, date of incident and approx. time and miles after installation before the clutch failed.

Click to expand...

Vendors-Review.com moved, so the thread is now located at this link

I PMed some of you, about 20 people on this site.

Please, even if you don't want anything out of this. I need your information. We need to show that this is not a fluke. And to prove that their product is faulty. You will be helping the rest of us out. At the end of this week, I will make my move.

I didn't get a PM...

This post is for those of you who had problems too... Make sure you check everything in there... EVERYTHING. I thought that it was just my disk, but upon re-assembly I found that my throw-out bearing was dead and the input shaft on the tranny broke along with part of the bellhousing:thumbdown Anyways, make sure you do a thorough check!

Pulling mine out tomorrow I'll vote when I can see what's broken. It's got 800 easy miles on it, no launches, only running 8 lb boost. It worked fine untill two weeks ago.

It's out.
F**king pressure plate. 3 fingers are in too far, 2 about 1/16" and 1 about 1/8". I can't spot anything in there jamming it. The plate surface has a big burn spot right outside of these fingers. The clutch spings are ok, but it's worn halfway to the rivets because of the slippage. What a POS. :thumbdown Markings on it Spec 1.1 #B012562 date 2-21-03

It sucks, But act sent me a new one, After i sent this one back to them.
7500 Miles, about 30-40 12 second passes 2 1.6 60ft's

Matt

Well, since i cant vote again i guess i will just post it. My second thats right SECOND act 2100lb clutch is on its way out. same exact problem as last time. all the noises and everything are there. i am not in a financial situation to keep fixing this, i am not buying/using another ACT clutch. even if the damn thing is given to me. I am calling ACT tomorrow to see if theres anything that they can do about this. I am at my wits end with these stupid clutches, i love my car and dont want to get rid of it, but i may have to. it sucks being 18 going to college and being poor! :thumbdown

I called David Koyle at ACT. He was very helpful and informative. I think someone said this before. But the problem is the not the install error of the clutch itself, but the missing dowel pins when re-installing the tranny

The real issue is the Mitsubishi's design for the tranny/engine, or more specifically, the lack of engine to tranny bolts, my 90 Mazda 626 had eight or ten. All of our DSM's only have 4 bolts holding the tranny to the engine. Between each of the bolt holes are these any of these dowel pins (or sleeves) the tranny will not truely be aligned, you get get sleeve-like dowel pins that make sure the tranny is ACTUALLY aligned. If you are missing close probably within a few millimeters, but the tranny will not be aligned. This causes the input shaft to put a sideways pressure on the center hub of the clutch disc, eventually with all the spinning makes an uneven force causing the center hub to loosen. The center hub is also what holds those springs tightly in place. So if the center hub can move, then the springs can move, eventually the spinning clutch will dislodge the springs. I took a look at the clutch disc. And tried a little test. The center hob moved way too much. So for those that had the springs fall out, try this test.

Take your finger and put it in the center, can you wiggle the center hub? If you can, its an install error. If a shop did it, then they are responsible for the clutch failure. If you are like me then, you're out of luck. Its your fault. I installed 8 clutches on a DSM, 3 of them were ACT. This one failed, its my fault. I'm 95% sure that it is. The only REAL way to find out is for me to pull the tranny again, and then check to see if any of my dowel pins are gone. I'm not gonna do that, so I will just take the blame.

However, Mr. Koyle was extremely understanding about the situation. He offered to sell me another ACT2600 kit at a discount price. Since I already installed another ACT2600 kit in the car, I declined the offer. I asked him if he could do anything for a flywheel (since I spent $360 on the Fidanza Flywheel) and he offered to cut of a 1/3 of the price....

I just ordered my ACT StreetLite.

In conclusion. If a shop did the install, you are going to have to go after them. If the say its not, then have them pull the tranny and to check if any are missing. If they are, they should have called you before continuing any work. Its like you have a hole in your cyclinder and a shop installs you new pistons anyway.
If you did it yourself, its probably your fault. But call ACT anyway, you might get a deal, and this time when you put the tranny back on. Make sure you do it right.

Below is a pic from a tech article for a clutch install that I did on my 1g FWD (the clutch failed on my 1g AWD). The bottom white circles is where you can see these guide sleeves, I believe. They are on my FWD (as you can see in the pic), but I don't remember seeing them on my AWD. They may have came out when pulling or reinstalling the tranny, one of the 3 times I pulled the tranny. (put new motor in, with different tranny, then orginal stock clutch gave out, installed a stocker, and then a month later the ACT clutch). Regardless, I don't think they were there. We will find out later, if the new ACT disc fails.

Mine are there.

mine too, i even made sure that they were held in tightly so they wouldnt fall out.

you two should call ACT, the number is (661) 940-7555. If you clutch failed and the dowel pins are in place, then you probably have a different problem. But if that center hub can wiggle, they are going to label it an install error.

I updated the thread at www.vendors-reviewed.com with this information. If you have the problem with the clutch and have all the dowel pins in place, please continue to document it here:

http://63.247.78.146/~vendors/forums/viewtopic.php?p=36#36

I'm NOT saying anything is resolved or done, just laserspeeddemon has done some research on this and I have updated vendors-reviewed.

Thanks, Joe

Airpoppoff said:

It sucks, But act sent me a new one, After i sent this one back to them.
7500 Miles, about 30-40 12 second passes 2 1.6 60ft's

Matt

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Fixed them

Mine took a shit as i was on the dyno. it locked up and wouldnt go into gear. took the tranny off and ALL of the springs were out of the disc. the fingers of the PP were bent, my TOB was melted to my output shaft and i dont even know if i can fix my built TRE tranny. the flywheel has marks in it and the BRAND NEW street disc was separated into 3 parts. my dowel pins are still intact also. Im ordering my Southbend clutch today because ACT sucks and ruined my shit. Ill call ACT and see what they will do.

Also, what do you do IF the dowel pins are missing? Are you suppose to get new ones?

Everyone should REALLY consider the Southbend clutch. Im getting my feramic clutch kit for 308 through a groupbuy.

This is pretty odd but why is everyone complaining about an ACT clutch awd? I don't see any fwd guys complaining. Could it be something with how the awd clutches were made. Plus if you think about it, out of all the people who drive modded dsm's the majority of them are running ACT clutches and we just happen to hear baout 99% of the cases making it sound like all of them are bad.

Ive had my 2100 for 8k miles. granted the car has been limping lately. it handled 21psi fine, probably around 330 ft/lb of tq at the flywheel. hopefully i wont have this same problem :thumbdown

my act 2600 was literally dust after 6k miles. the disc was a powder and the pressure plate was thrashed.

but i did order another one do we will see