Other than costing a bunch of $$$ my supplier brought me a clutch kit that he said would tame my new 4.5 caddy engine after him having to replace 2 other disk, so far and the good thing I will not have to pay for it at least till I try it so my contention is how does it compare to the other clutches and what is your impression of it .I think Cali Kid and Tina is running this set up in their cars with success so far but I have to machine the flywheel and all that so before I do I would appreciate the feedback before I do this.
The racing season has started and I would like to take it to WPB Moroso Motorsport Park as soon as restoration work is done to do some official timed runs instead of the G Tech reading which has been great but no time slip and at least to satisfy the curious into what it will do .......I call my car "Screwface " because it is always angry and bitchy and disagreeable (like my wife...........shhhh hope she don't read this ) when I start it up .

[This message has been edited by Master Tuner Akimoto (edited 03-16-2004).]

It's an excellent "Positive" Clutch setup, but must be setup properly, and doesn't tolerate "slipping the clutch" as the race disk compound will glaze easily (destroying in gripping effect). The Organic Quarter Master Compound is only good for about 10,000 miles of street/strip use, when you do finally notice slip, change disks as soon as possible (excessive heat will warp the floater plate and possible pressure plate insert requireing replace of any part over 0.006 in. warp. All that said and done, it's the only clutch out of 5 HP Competative Units that has held up in my car, all the other wasted in under 1,000 miles.

You didn't mention if the unit you have is an Organic or Metallic Disk setup (they do require different parts) ??? I've been told that some people have had great success with the Metallic 7.25 setup on the street, and lead to believe the disk life exceeded 10,000 miles by a substancial amount. It's a little more of a "on-off" switch at take-off than the organic (which is pretty easy to get use to).

As far as I know, now one here has put a large number of miles on a SPEC III Unit yet, but it may be another consideration. I'm still waiting for more feedback on how well this unit is holding up. If I can get the holding power and durability at least double what I get with the Quarter Master Unit, I'd switch over (not that I have anything bad to say about Quarter Master, but I'd like better life out of the disks).

More information in my " Thread " , try pages 3 & 4 :
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/025670.html

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0 to 75 Audio http://www.cartsys.com/fiero/cal-engine.wav

[This message has been edited by California Kid (edited 03-16-2004).]

^

I emailed this thread to wcapman who's running a QM behind his Northstar. Maybe he'll have something to say.

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'87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud
'90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above

Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future

As Calikid mentioned the Spec stage 3 and above clutch maybe one to look into. I've been running one for over 3 thousand miles after the initial break in with great results. I'm running a 3800SC motore, as is I think forum member Lowkey if I remember reading correctly on his cardomain page. My stage 3 is seeing around 380 crank horse power. Something you may want to consider.

Okay, I'll say something. I've been running a Quartermaster behind my N* and been on the street now since 1999. I have about 17,000 miles on it and it still works fine. It was a "little" agressive when first installed, but now it behaves just like a regular clutch. Only complaint is it's noisey when disengaged as the center disk rattles around somewhat. Dan Garcia has been running the exact same setup. He drives the mountain roads of the Cascades about 120 miles a day and now has 60k+ on his car. He has no complaints about the clutch but is having a problem with the drive shafts on the differential. This has nothing to do with the clutch, but rather the rear seals.

I tend to slip the clutch a little more than I should when I start off, and I have to admit that some of my starts are in 3rd gear when no one is looking, which requires a little more clutch slip. I do NOT drop the clutch as I just don't care to shock the drive line.

I've been around the racing scene for some years and had a lot of experience with clutches. I've never heard of a Quartermaster lasting over 25K miles even when not abused. Are you sure you're talking about the same clutch?

For clarification, I get about 15,000 miles out of my disks, I posted expected life of 10,000 miles above for two reasons:

A. That's what Quarter Master will tell you on expected life of the Organic 7.25 Disks, they won't ' stand behind them ' with over 10,000 miles.

B. I drive the car pretty darn hard, but I don't consider it severe or abusive, so I posted 10,000 miles so that no one would be disappointed if they started slipping at that point.

As I stated above, I've heard that greater life can be expected with Quarter Master's Metallic Disks, but you have to start out with that setup, if you want to switch later (in either case) it'll cost you a new Titiaium Ring Housing ($700.00), plus new disks and floater plate.

Question for WCapman: Are you running the 7.25 Twin Disk or the Triple Disk setup??? I can only run the Twin Disk due to tight package in the Getrag Case with my conversion system, and flywheel.

[This message has been edited by California Kid (edited 03-18-2004).]

I'm running the 7.5" DUAL disk organic "show car" clutch from Quartermaster. Dan is running the same setup out in Concrete Wa. EXACT same setup. We both are running custom 440C stainless steel flywheels. This is the Quartermaster setup that was furnished back in 1998 when these two engines went together. Dan drives his daily about 60 miles each way from his home in the Cascade Mts to the clinic where he works. He's an MD. I just putter around in mine driving a lot less than I would like to, but I have insurance from Grundy which restricts me to driving to car shows, club meetings, etc. Since I have valued this car at 25K it was the only insurance I could get. Geico would only issue insurance for the value of an 85 Fiero. Enough said. I have driven my car well over 15k. I've changed out the instrument to all digital and the original odometer is who knows where. I put over 10k on it from 1999 to 2000, and then have about 8k on it now, but part of that time I had no speedo (not the kind you wear) so I'll say 18k+. Some of this was autocrossing (at least 7 events) one night at the drags, and a bunch of street starts and stops. Dan drives his car hard, but he also has a lot of road miles on it. And he drives in the mountains.

With that said, I have no problems with the current clutch, but I have not opened the tranny to see what condition it's in. Nothing is warped or slips is all I can say. Dan put over 60k on his before he got an oil leak from a tranny seal and had to replace the disks. I know that right now he is pulling the tranny for about the 5th time, but his problem has been with the rebuilder who doesn't seem to be able to put all the bolts back into their holes. It's the original tranny.

Based on the experience of these two cars, I would not hesitate to recommend Quarteremaster for this application. It's a noisey clutch, it has some quirks, and I understand now that it is expen$ive. But it works. I think it all depends on how you drive the car as to how long the clutch will last. But to put a blanket statement out the QM clutches last 15k tops is like saying Fiero's last 4 years, tops. A lot depends on the driver.....

Would I change to something else? Probably not since it would have to demonstrate SUPERIOR performance and life, and be cheap.

As luck would have it I just spoke with Dan last night. He is replacing his tranny because of the carrier problem and decided to replace his clutch. Dan has logged 60k miles on his Quartermaster and unknown miles before the digital speedo was reading correctly. The condition of the clutch was not so good. Severla rivits were sheared and the disk friction material had rotated about 1/2". Noting appeared to be warped and the clutch was not slipping when he disassembled it. Dan called quartermaster and they were suprised that it had lasted so long. They indicated this was unusual. They do offer replacemnt disks for about 100. Dan just sent the whole thing back to be checked out.

So, what have we learned? I don't know, really. Guess it depends on how you drive it.