Its seems like there are a few people on here that have problems with these t5 setups.

My car was an auto- I put a T5 Swap and did a nice job.

92- WC T5

New Ram 400hp rated Centerforce Clutch:
New steel flywheel
New throwout bearing:
New piliot
Mcloeds adjustable master slave.
Hurst shifter

The setup ran great for 6 months: barely 1000 miles on it. Then clutch goes to the floor and will barely engage. WTF? I bleed it like 25 times, literally because the pedal was no longer hard. It seemed like hydrolics, but I inspected the entire system and I can see the slave pushing it the required .75 or inch or whatever.

I used a .50 inch longer rod, then 1 inch longer- made no difference.

Now- I thought it was the pressure plate, but the clutch does work. It grips but doesnt come out of gear fully, unless you bury the pedal in the carpet. Im thinking bent clutch fork? When it worked you barely had to push it in 3 inches and it fully disengaged it.

I didnt put anything in backwords: keep in mind it worked, and worked well.

What boggles my mind is how great it worked for 6 months. I didnt race it or anything.

Im guessing bent clutch fork?

 

you can only have 2 Parts creating this Issue... bending the fork... with a clutch rating as such... for a T5... sounds like a self answered question
the case flexes enough... now when that monster grabs... your looking for some scatter... take a peek at the travel of the pushrod... with the extra + 1.00
or a master and or slave Issue

 

Power slave is moving it way more than it needs to. I spoke to RAM and they said it only needs .40 to fully disengage it. Now its moving twice that. I was just wondering how likely it is that these forks bend. When I put the used one in I saw that it was steel and figured a used one was ok. Do they make high performace versions.? I'm jacking the car up now, I guess I have to take it apart and see.

 

Have you pulled the dust boot and inspected the fork, ballstud & t.o. brg? You may be able to see irregular fork shape.

If you find that it's your fork, the bolt part doesn't necessarily help your hydraulic linkage pieces live a long life. If you have proper clutch release and you continue the pedal to the floor, you could be stressing the fork and pressure plate unnecessarily.

When you set it up next time, put the release point closer to the floor (like 25 to 50%) If the McLeod is larger i.d. and adjusting the release closer to the floor makes the travel too short, consider a smaller bore master.

 

the fork looks ok from what i can see (wich isnt much). Any thoughts on replaceing the ball? Might as well I guess: I really really dont want to take this thing apart again.

I dont think i was over pushing the clutch, it was right on the money. The pedal was rock hard and you only had to push it slightly to go into gear. Though when this thing went south, who knows....the pedal feels sloppy now as if it isnt pushin against the PP but more like it eventually pushing the fork into it. (if it were bent) Well, its jacked up I got the driveshaft out and the trans will come out tommorow.

For anyone else doing a T5 swap: Id use a new power/master slaves and clutch fork. It seems used parts always come back to haunt you lol.

Every used part I put in this broke, bent or leaked

 

This post makes no sense. He didn't post the clutch rating (pressure plate pressure) so we have no idea the forces on his fork.

What case are you suggesting is flexing?

-- Joe

 

what do you mean? Pressure plate pressure? Its a ram center force part number RAM-98794. Summit racing said it would be good to 400hp. NO where does it state the pressure plate force when I went to buy the clutch kit.

Im pretty sure its a bent clutch fork, i cant see it from the outside but once it comes apart ill post it incase anyone else has this problem.

Its either that or the pressure plate itself.

 

98794? This is a mustang?

I've seen bent clutch forks, but not on thirdgens. Usually if you buy a pressure plate with enough pressure (2600lbs) to bend a clutch fork, your slave already exploded all over the ground...



-- Joe

 

oh its a 98730 - the slave is fine

 

That's just a stock pressure plate. So I don't think the pressures are high enough to bend the fork. Take it apart and let us know.

-- Joe

 

Im going to tell you the problem I had with MY first t-5 swap. the clutch pedal assy i bought did NOT come with the two reinforcement rods that connect into the master at the fire wall (they drop down from the pedal assembly and bolt over the master bolts) over time the stress on the fire wall from pushing the clutch cracked it and pushed it out far enough to make shifting EXTREMELY difficult. I had to slam first and gas it to get moving. i removed the master, pounded the firewall back in, welded it, ground it, got the reinforcment rods from the junk yard, put them on tight and used them to draw the master back in. the car now shifts PERFECTLY. i started driving the car in december, it took till august to get really bad, so 8 months here.

 

good tip.

 

Before I sold my T5.. Joe... And removed my engine... My combo was beating Z06's with ease I could feel how weak every part of the T5 really was... And not power shifting... Yet it held up.. on a stock clutch... So I know if I had a 400 HP rated clutch... Parts would fly.. so duck ;-)

 

Cool. I had a T5 on a 600hp rated clutch. I don't know what Z06's run but I was running 120mph trap speeds in the 1/4 shifting at 6200 rpm. It felt fine.

The problem with T5's are kids missing shifts.

-- Joe

 

This is so true i know because i was that kid haha i went thru one T-5 just for that reason once i learned to shift i put 50k miles on another trans and raced alot and never had any issue

 

Ohh trust me I know the stock shifter is a joke... The pro 5.0 should be installed day 1... Now try telling the rest of the board a T5 will handle that power .... I was told its impossible... And I had the superman T5 .. you must have the matching marvel comics.. godzilla.T5.. I was only pulling 113 / 1/4 from 2nd gear no way... Could I hook up on street tires from 1st... But definitely felt very weak. And flexed

 

I've been on the forum long enough to know whats true and what is urban legends. Too often people have problems that is their fault yet they need to blame parts.

The factory shifter is garbage, like most factory shifters. Yes, people do miss third and when you do sometimes it explodes.

Some people buy a 20 year old car, hop it up a little, and the transmission explodes. They whine that it's the T5, or 700R4, or whatever not considering the fact that the car had 20 years of abuse before they picked it up for $700 on craigslist.

T5's are not very strong compared to a TKO for sure, but it's laughable at best to suggest such stories such as "GM didn't put them behind 350s because they couldn't take the power". Like the extra 10hp the 350 had really amounted to anything. The 350 didn't get a T5 because it didn't meet the emissions requirements, not enough control over the shifting, and when downshifting the hydrocarbons went through the roof. GM could have put the 4+3 (from the Corvette) into the Fbody, but then you would add major cost to the fbody line. It doesn't make sense from a marketing standpoint to supply a T5 in the v6 and 305, and have an expensive complicated transmission in a 350 car. (especially when a manual car was cheaper than an automatic MSRP). In 1989 GM switched to the ZF6 on the Corvette line, which was also used on a few special SLP cars if I recall.

I don't know how you feel 'flex'. Unless you hooked up some pretty expensive equipment to measure case flex under load and record it while the vehicle is operating I'd say it's just an assumption. IF you want to talk about flex, let's discuss why the torque arm is mounted to the transmission. I've hit gears so hard I've broken rubber transmission mounts. Do you think that type of load is good for the transmission? After breaking two mounts racing, I switched to the Jegster torque arm which mounted to the floor.

-- Joe

 

I think my current favourite as of late is "my stock clutch has 110k on it. I'm gonna replace it with a twin disc billet steel flywheel setup that costs 3 x as much."

A fellow wrote to Chevy High Perf. magazine recently. His letter appears in the October 2011 issue. In short: he's broken 5 trans. mounts under his 4L60-E in 200k+ miles. The writer suggests a hose clamp around the stocker, or an E.S. poly mount. Maybe they'll print my response to that shortfallen column.

 

its definitely the Pressure plate. Ram said it should move .40 to disengage. I looked with a flash light and can see the fork pushing the pressure plate with no problem. Just by looking at it I can tell its moving the fork .50 to 1.00 at least.

The pressure plate makes some kind of squeaking noise like old rickety stairs. This is a freak thing to happen to a new setup but, I will confirm when its all apart since I bet ram will take their time testing the PP before hopefully sending me a new one.

 

the creaking noise is probably the clutch slave, mine makes the same noise, did you check for the two firewall braces on your master?

 

yea, everything (hydraulics, clutch fork, pedals etc) looks good: i do have the firewall braces. and its working exactly as it should. It just doesnt disengage.

has anyone else had problems with ram clutches?

 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is an EXTREMELY common mistake made when putting a new clutch system in. Did you install the throwout bearing correctly on the release fork? A lot of guys slip the top lip of the t/o bearing underneath the 2 little spring steel tabs instead of having the spring steel tabs underneath the top lip of the t/o bearing. This mistake makes it to where you have to have a ton more pedal travel to get the pressure plate to fully disengage from the flywheel. Somewhere here on the boards, there's a picture that's been posted who knows how many times that shows both the correct and incorrect way to put the t/o bearing on the release fork. The bad news is you have to pull the trans back out to put the t/o bearing back on the fork the proper way. From all the symptoms you've described, it sounds like this could definitely be the culprit!

 

RAM uses valeo pressure plates (I may have spelled that wrong), which is an OE pressure plate.

I used to use RAM clutches before I switched to Fort Wayne, because they treat me better.

Is the transmission out? I'd have someone step on the clutch, and see what it's doing visually.

If I have some time tonight, I'll bust out my '92 service manual. I think it has the specs of the fork ratio and TOB travel vs slave travel.

-- Joe

 

I was just about to tell you the same thing lol. as pat stated, this is exactly what happend to me. mine work great for about 5 blocks around the neighborhood until it wouldnt work again. made the same creak type noise and all.

 

Just found that pic that everyone posts!

 

DOES ANYONE USE HIGH PERFORMANCE THROWOUT BEARINGs?




I got the trans out: everything looks fine. Sadly EVEN THE STUPID PRESSURE PLATE LOOKS FINE. The springs are just as stiff as the new one I have FRIGGGTY FRIG!

Im going to put the new clutch and PP in, but I can tell already thats not whats wrong. It must be ther Masterslave? I bought the MCloeds adjustable it was like 350 for it. Its 6 months old-grrrr!. I looked- it doesnt leak, I replaced the power slave even though the old one wasnt bad. WHAT THE HELL- I thought manuals were supposed to be simpler than automatics.

Is it possible there is air in the line still? I would hate to take the masterslave out, thats worse than taking the tranny out.

I guess ill call mcloeds tommorow.

Someone please help before I throw this car off a cliff.....

 

Why not use a factory master and slave? Stock 3rd gen pedals?

 

Is it possible to do this on a T56 and have the opposite problem since the clutch fork setup is reversed? It doesnt make sense that it would work that way to me really but Im not sure... I get full disengagement in the first inch or so travel. Apparently that's the norm with the T56 swaps, but I sure didnt know what I was doing when I put it together and put it in the car... LOL.

 

While that McLeod adjustable M/C is damn expensive, it's a really sweet deal to have one in your ride! I know how expensive they are b/c I bought one for my car. However, I scored bigtime as a guy had a brand new one he didn't use or need, and he posted it on here for a paltry $125, so I snagged that puppy! Well, if you're sure you've got the throwout bearing installed correctly on the fork like shown in the pics I posted above, your next step is to make absolutely sure you've got ALL air bled out of the system. Btw, there's really no such thing as a "high performance" T/O bearing. I mean as long as it's U.S. made, and not Chinese junk, your average 20 dollar T/O is more than adequate. , Anyhow, once everything's assembled correctly and the hydraulics are fully bled, I think the only issue you'll be down to at that point will probably be getting that McLeod M/C adjusted to where it gives you enough travel down at the slave cylinder. And as far as your comment about manual trannys being easier than autos, that really is true for the most part. The only thing that makes it such a PITA on our 3rd gens is the hydraulic linkage setup versus the old tried and true mechanical linkage. However, once you get everything functioning properly on the hydraulic system, it's SOOOOOO much sweeter in operation than the old mechanical linkage system!

 

i didnt use the factory MS b/c it went bad and was leaking. I thought using a BETTER one would result in me never having to touch it again.

Mcloeds said they will replace and that they will send me the new model.

Sadly im tired of all this and will be parting out the car.

I guess what happened was the internals of the master slave went bad and it wasnt displacing the correct amount of fluid per pedal stroke. I cant see any reason for this to happen except that it was defective.


I guess ill find out in 3 months when they test it and send me a new one.

 

wait you're parting out the car over a bad slave cylinder? really? no offense but thats kinda lame. the car doesn't deserve that

 

The car has a bent frame. This also has a drum brake rear and its not an iroc. The front springs are indexed incorrectly. I've had so many problems with this car its almost always up on blocks, it reached a point where it isn't worth it. I will take some parts for my86 and sell the rest. I'm moving out of my parents house soon and will no where to work on a camaro.

 

If you're gonna part it out, the one piece of advise I'd give you is if McLeod actually agreed to ship you a brand new replacement clutch M/C, definitely take em up on it! Those things cost about $300 new. You could list it for sale and make a nice profit off of it! But yeah, from your description it does sound like your car is kind of a trainwreck overall, so parting it out might not be so bad an idea.

 

I wouldnt make any profit? I paid 350 for it off of summit racing. They said that version is discontinued and will be sending me a new model. So i guess thats good, sadly my other Iroc is an auto so I have to do another 5spd conversion if I wanna use it.....egh

 

Oh yeah, just hang onto it if you ever plan on another conversion in the future. Just thought I'd point out you can make a little bit of cash off it if you sell it separate when you part the car out.