I apologize for the poor pic quality but hopefully you guys can see what happened. One of those springs on the disk came free and was just banging around/scratching around/tearing itself up in there. This was after about 40k miles BTW





Just in case anyone needs a reminder of Centerforces quality. It also scratched up the aluminum on the flywheel on the facing side.

And no I did not buy it, it came with the car.

 

ah yay, the pics.

*******it, my car came w/ centerforce clutch on it... and it's already slipping (50k miles). I know i don't drive THAT BAD. Hell, i use it for 95% highway driving! Thanks for the pics, i'll take pics of mine when i get it out to see if there's any comparison.

 

ACT is the way.

 

Both ACT and Centerforce seem to not be so good for our Maxima. The ACT seems to wear out other parts of the transmission and the Centerforce seems to fall apart. I hope someone steps in and makes a clutch kit that will work without problems like these. I might take a look into Exedy...they do great things for Honda and the mother-company Daiken is probably the largest OEM distributor.

 

i'm thinkin about goin back to OEM clutch or goin w/ exedy...

btw, does the centerforce clutch require a little bit more force when pushing the clutch pedal in? I'm curious to know because i've never driven a max w/ stock clutch in. thanks

 

so far my LuK clutch is holding up very well. I can bark 2nd and sometimes chirp third in it, but only if I really try.. about 25k miles on it so far..

only problem I've had with it yet is that it slipped a bit when I dropped the clutch in 3rd or 4th gear when it was REALLY cold outside. otherwise, it's been great. hope I can say that in a year though.

 

I'm goin with Exedy now

I havent driven a Max with stock clutch either so I dunno.

However, my pedal was pretty stiff and I highly doubt it was that stiff stock.

 

Same here, I had the LuK S1 performance clutch installed yesterday.

 

It aint the clutch that distroys the tranny, it's the person who is using it that distroys the tranny.

You can shift smoothly with an ACT clutch and you can chirp third gear with it as well. Which shift do you think prolongs the life of the tranny?

The Maxima is a 4 door luxury sports car, it's not built like a race car. When you put a street/race clutch in it and drive it like a race car, your asking for tranny trouble. It's pretty simple logic.

 

thank you Tom..

to compliment what Tom said.. i have never had a problem with my ACT.. i don't even have chatter, my tranny is holding up great... i have over 3000 miles on my ACT, its still grabbing perfectly. I don't miss gears and i don't ride my clutch. I have seen people at lights who they wait at the light and the car is in gear and their foot is on the clutch for about 3 mins straight. Correct me if i am wrong but i was told not to do this, or they are on a hill at a light and they are balancing the clutch and gas for like 5 mins.

To compliment what James said, i have done searches and found over 10 members, James making 11 and if you count Jon in CT, he had a Centerforce problem twice, thats about 15 incidents with Centerforce and maxima's. However, people still swear they are fine and they will keep buying them.

 

You are correct Sir. Riding the Clutch at the stoplight is best avoided unless you dont mind replacing the throwout bearing and presure plate in short periods.

Oh yeah bye the way. Centerforce SUCKS! I never had one in any of my Maximas. But my SE-R puked one up like bad baby food.

 

i think they improved it for the 5th Gen because Adam's never slipped.. not under 8 PSI of boost or 100 shot of Nitrous and about 100 runs at the track(estimate)

but i know for 4th Gen's they suck donkey *****..

 

Perhaps. But good thing for Centerforce that the VQ doesn't spin to 8000 RPMs. That would make it a scatterforce like in the SE-R's.

 

My old CF dual friction lasted a little over a month. It held the power good at first (after the break-in period), then started to chatter like crazy, I would guestimate at about 2000-4000 miles later, I took off normal(no wheel spin) but took it up to about 6000 rpm, pushed the clutch pedal to the floor to shift and it stayed there, the tranny was now stuck in 1st. (good thing i was about 10 blocks from home). I did see this coming as there were times before this when the clutch felt like it was 'sticking' (pedal rising slowly) but always came back up. I once had to bang the linkage(?) or fork(?) on the tranny in the engine to get it to come back up.

One side of the clutch had absolutely no meat on it whatsoever, and those weights on the PP looked like they shifted. (I guess creating an uneven clutch to flywheel contact) Called up CF and they blamed the heavy chatter on the stillen flywheel. (uneven flywheel surface) Stillen wasnt much of a help either as I installed the CF and flywheel almost a year after I bought it.

Anyway, this was not due to driver error as when we removed the stock clutch it had normal even wear on both sides. Mechanic said thats a sign of a driver with good 'clutch technique'

I was a 'lurker' back in '00-01' so I never posted this...

 

FYT Most centerforce clutches (not the dual-friction) are just rebranded LUK clutches with the weights added to the pressure plate.

 

went thru 2 CF DF clutches in 20k mi...
works good, feels good, until it slips after less than a year.

 

Centerforce dual frictin is way softer then the ACT, very soft, girlie soft. I installed one in this ladies' car and she will drive it like a lady so it will last

 

Modified stock or LuK plate? The LuK S1 plate already has an 860kg clamp load.

Anyone know the clamp load ratings for the C/F, ACT and Exedy S1? All I can find is the Exedy S1 with the old part number was 915kg. Thats rated as 55% over stock, yet the Exedy S1 going around now with the new part number is listed at 36% or 39% depending where you read it.

 

you were my one hope for saying they are good.. now i know they suck