warp21

I just installed a new OEM equivalent clutch and resurfaced the flywheel. From what I understand it seems that a 500 mile break in is needed before any aggressive driving should take place. Now to me 500 miles is pretty vague. I could go out on a large highway and get 500 miles and only shift the car 100 times or I could drive around the city and shift it 2000 times. Is the clutch breaking in while engaged and under load or is it the amount of times it gets engaged?

You see my problem is the car normally will not see 500 miles in a year, it's basically a toy/backup. I tinker on it a little through the month then I take it to the drag strip. I'd like to go next week but I'll be lucky to hit 250 miles before then, and this is driving the car every day. I could get 500 miles on it but I don't feel putting around on the highway is an effective way to break it in. Or is it?

koreancorvette01

The actually break in period is for stop and go driving around town. The whole purpose is to slip the clutch so that both surfaces self surface each other by basically grinding down until they are flush with each other and maximum contact can be made. I have heard that you can do high gear drop while cruising to quickly surface them together but you run the risk of glazing the surfaces and if done right it still kills the life of the clutch. The way to do it is get up to around 25 mph minimum and put the car in to a high gear like fourth at that mph and free rev the motor to around 4000 with the clutch in and let off the gas and release the clutch so the grabbing of the clutch slows down the engine speed . Since you aren't giving the car any throttle it shouldn't load the clutch to the point that it glazes but again this isnt the best thing you can do but the quickest if its need soon . Here is a faq from the act site it descibes the "hard slip " im talking about, but it has to be a race disc.

13. Do ACT clutches require a break in period?

For organic street discs “00 and SS” we recommend breaking in the clutch for 200-300 miles with mild engagement such as stop and go city driving prior to racing or spirited driving. ACT race discs usually only require a few hard slips to lap in the surfaces prior to normal driving or racing. Do not overheat the clutch during the break in period.

Stocker

If it's street legal, drive it around for a couple weeks as a daily driver.

warp21

I ended up getting about 100 city miles on the clutch before I started racing and it seems fine so far.

DTN

There's not really much you can say about break-in of a clutch. koreancorvette01 pretty much said it all. You can slip the clutch on your own if you do it lightly, but there's a great risk of glazing it if you overdo it then you basically have a new clutch that acts like an old one.

dddude55

I'm actually wondering about the act description as well. I'm about to have an act 6puck sprung kit put in and it says to do a few hard slips. Well what constitutes a few hard slips....

mwood

it was easy for me to break my clutch in, since it was and still is my DD

just did shift pass 3k for 300-500 miles...which was easy cuz at the time i live in VA and drove everywhere