Fidanza Clutch Fail

[RUNXZ]

So my clutch is dying so after some research i decide to go with the Fidanza light flywheel and clutch kit...great. I purchased the parts from Matt at monkeywrench racing online and the parts were sent quickly. So Saturday rolls around and we start work early in the morning to get through everything in one day. Laptop in hand we follow the instructions in the corolla repair manual to a T, every bolt goes back up with lok tite and a torque wrench. Finally after many hours we check and recheck everything and start the car. We take the car for a drive and its running great. Fidanza tells me there is no break in period but i dont buy that so i drive it easy for the first 2 days. I find i get a burning smell for the 2 days and the car makes quite a bit of noise when you are in neutral and u dont depress the clutch. Im told this is normal so i continue to go about my business feeling happy about my purchase especially as i have run ACT before for years in my last corolla and i have saved 140 us on the clutch kit going with a Fidanza kit. 4 days of the clutch being in and i start to run the car hard, i still have the noise and the smell. The 5th day on my way to work im punching it in second gear right up to 8300 rpm and "bam" i hear a loud noise sounding like if u have a plastic bag out the window, so i slow down and pull the bonnet. The first thing i notice is alot more vibration in the engine. The next thing i notice is that there is a little oil on the cross member. Im like WTF. So naturally i drive off and see if i can get the sound again and it comes again. Now moving off i get a metal on metal type of sound when the clutch engaging. Naturally i take the car right to the garage to see what my boy Danny has to say. As soon as he looks under the bonnet he says "**** look at this, something let go in here boy" Upon inspection we realise there is 2 holes in the bell housing. He says " u eh driving this car untill we get inside here" 2 Days later we get into it. We realise the pressure has totally failed, one of the flex joints in the PPlate let go and had a great time running about in my housing. Lets just say im devastated. We take pics of the damage and i send it to Matt who is horrified and he send it off to Fidanza who to date have not got back to either of us. As the car is my daily driver i need it on the road ASAP so i decided to go bact to ACT who have not failed me before. Along with the 400 us dollar ACT kit i ordered new flywheel bolts by ARP and new pressure plate bolts just in case. Even though its not Matts fault he gives me a discount on the new parts which i find is very nice of him. So here i am today about to put in the new ACT and i will let you know how it works. Bad luck on my part maybe, but it has made me doubt Fidanza clutches and so i decided my fellow Toyota brothers and sisters should know about it so you can make your own decisions. Check this post on Toyota owners club Australia for pics.

[borodaz]

maybe the toyota clutch is so expensive for a reason, they will have done their research and will have faith that the clutch they are now using in facelift and onwards is suitable for such a high revving and powerfull car, from the reason i just stated is why when i need a new clutch i will be getting toyota to do it, but then thats just my opinion.

looks like you had a bit of bad luck, maybe the clutch wasnt up for such high reving or maybe u got a bad one, hope the new one works better :)

by the way, how often do u hold a plastic bag out of your window ? lol