The Clutch has arrived

As well as we have sweet dreams about a lot of horse powers we have nightmares about  how to transfer them to to the gearbox.  A clutch is the answer. But what kind of clutch will take it and still fit our slightly tiny Volvo flywheel.    We thought that some of the aftermarket clutches for american muscle must surely be able to take torque. But how big are they?

To shoot that man you must go to Reno. Because what can you find in Reno?  A fortune at the casinos?  No, no.  What brings mankind to Reno is Summit Racings fabulous warehouse outlet (and possibly the National Automobile Museum, which contains a collection that approaches the The Insane Schlumpf).

 Summit is actually just a large building with a shop in one corner. You go into the shop. You are baffled about what is on display.Then you proceed to ask for parts. They check if they have them in stock.   Then you wait a few minutes, and poof, what ever you asked for will appear at an other desk.  In fact, the first fully working implementation of Heaven ™.

We did that, and asked for a racing clutch we thought should make it. They had it in stock. We got it. And we could measure its diameter.  Sad thing is that those single disc clutches all are to big in diameter, we can not really fit them in our application. I guess it comes down to the laws of physics that governs that V8s are bigger and stronger and can take larger clutches.

Now, Summit has of course more alternatives.  Multi disc clutches. Small i diameter. Used in Nascar and Formula 1.  A tad more expensive.  And yes, you can buy them, but this was actually to stretch even Summit, they do not keep them in stock. Special order only. But the friendly Summit engineer looked it up in his system and checked the manufacturers stock.  "Yes sir, they are in stock at Tilton engineering in Buellton". Dang, where the hell is Buellton?  Just north of LA it turns out!  We call them up and got to speak with Mr Kirk. Very friendly and knowledgeable on clutches. And against normal procedures we where allowed come by and pick up a 3 disc clutch that should take 850 Nm.  850 Nm is perhaps a bit on the low side.  Anyway, I swung by on my route back to LA. Got a full tour of Tilton engineering, and a clutch.

And here it is, home in all its beauty, with throwout bearing and 3 sinter discs that fits straight to our T56 Magnum gearbox:

And, after reading the manual a little bit more carefully it turns out that we got it wrong on the phone with Kirk. This clutch takes 1850 Nm!

Remains to fit it to the flywheel.