New Clutch? Service Life and Grip?

[badazz81z28]

I have a Monster Level 3 clutch and upon inspection and measuring, talking with SNL, it appears I have about 50% life left which doesn't seem bad, but its only been driven on for 6-8 months and about 3000 mostly street miles. Is there a clutch someone can reccomend that will hold power and give some decent life? The Monster clutch holding power was great, but pulling the transmission every year is not what I want to do. I have over 500hp.

[71RS/SS396]

That question is like asking which is better blonde, brunette, or redhead. There's no clear cut answer, if you race the car it's abusive to the clutch plain and simple. This is going to boil down to what you tolerance level is for street driving vs performance on the track. I prefer a lightweight clutch with a low moi since that seems to enable the trans to shift well at high rpm and it also has better engine braking on decel. There's a trade off for that though, it's easier to stall the car on take off since there's no mass to keep the engine rolling, it also makes the engine snap up on rpm instantaneously so throttle modulation is more difficult. The friction material used also has an effect on life and grip. I started out with organic since that has a tendency for less chatter but quickly found out it didn't tolerate the heat well and it exploded. I then moved to iron material since it's more tolerant of heat, it has minor chatter when it gets hot. Now I'm at iron discs with unsprung hubs which I don't find anymore harsh than with the springs.
I was getting about a year out of a clutch with my old engine combo but now it looks like I may be exceeding the limits of the clutch since I bent one of the discs on the last one. I try to balance replacement cost/rebuild vs life. You can spend a $4K-$6K on the latest and greatest triple carbon wonder clutch but if only lasts 6 month's longer and requires a lot of maintenance is it really worth it vs buying a $1100 dollar clutch that needs to be rebuilt once a year?

This is what happens to an overheated organic disc, notice in the second pic the friction material is totally m.i.a.

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af219/tmackg71/Track%20Car/debrtth008.jpg (http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/tmackg71/media/Track%20Car/debrtth008.jpg.html)

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af219/tmackg71/Track%20Car/debrtth010.jpg (http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/tmackg71/media/Track%20Car/debrtth010.jpg.html)

[Che70velle]

I went with a TDP stage 3, with lightweight billet flywheel. Jason builds these lightweight flywheels only to compensate for the heavier, more durable clutch assembly that your getting. I read the reviews, and some posted that the clutch action is "light switch on or off". I totally disagree. I can move the car around the shop with ease. It's not jumpy at all, and I drove the car around the street before getting off to paint, and the clutch feels great. I've read that your planning an ls7 build, so you might want to figure out your final power numbers, before you commit to a clutch.

Whatever you buy, take the entire assembly to your engine builder, and have them balance the entire assembly. Believe me, every clutch manufacturer says that their clutch is zero balanced. Wrong! They all need some work done to them. This is the key to smooth shifting trannys...balance the clutch assembly. Mine was out a considerable amount, and I talked to Jason about it at TDP, he couldn't believe it. Even my high end 5.5" QuarterMaster 3 disk clutches back in my late model days needed balancing by my engine builder.