Hmm definitely not totally opposed to that haha, just depends on what your time frame is. 400ftlbs rated for the FX350... damn that's quite a bit hahaha.

My car is a 6spd BTW.

Looks like ACT has an organic disk rated for 245ftlbs so that's also an option.

 

So, first step to doing a clutch job on an NC:

Buy new seats for the car lol



A local guy was parting out his NC and so I got some very lightly used Corbeau DFX's with brackets and sliders for a deal. Still rocking the 3 point for now since I am also still rocking stock roll hoops... The same guy had a harddog bar for sale but it is for a soft top car. The seats went in easy enough with the brackets and sliders except for the fact they hit the roof... You can see in the pic above how the top of the passenger seat is touching the intermediate roof hinge. The outer inch of the headrest portion of the seat is just soft foam so lucky it works but with the seats on the sliders I was also no lower than I was with the stock seats. I ended up pulling the sliders off the driverside and mounting it strait to the bracket which got me a decent bit lower but made installing the seat a huge pain in the ***. Without being able to slide the seat forward to access the rear bolts it was a balancing act to get the rear bolts even threaded in haha.

Next up was actually fixing my slowly disintegrating pilot bearing. I ordered the ACT HDSS clutch kit from Fab9 along with the optional light weight flywheel (which I assumed being an option on the ACT clutch kit would be the 10lb ACT streelite flywheel but ended up being the 14lb Exedy flywheel, oh well). Borrowed a buddies lift so the job went smoothly (so I thought). Replaced the rear main while I was in there even though the OEM one wasn't leaking because why wouldn't you.

Some pilot bearing carnage pics for your viewing pleasure. I'm not sure if the stress fractures happened while it was in the car or from me pulling the bearing out but pretty neat nonetheless:




Yeah she was toast haha.
Nice shiny new ACT/Exedy installed:



Got all this buttoned up and drove the car for a few days before the first track day of the year and all was well. Turns out the rear main was pissing oil the whole time but I was parking in the same spot in my driveway everyday and so I didn't notice lol.

Track day at Nelson Ledges was a good time as always. The car had some exhaust vibration the whole day which was weird since I didn't change anything with the exhaust and it hadn't been doing that on the street even on the way to and from the track. The rear main was also leaking all day but I didn't know at the time. I was out there with my buddy in his Spec Miata helping him get the car dialed in for the following weekend at Watkins Glen, but in between doing setup changes on his car I was out pretending to be a Spec Miata with the NC haha.


This whole bump drafting thing is kinda fun, maybe I should build a spec car...

 

A few days after the track day I put the car back up on the lift to take a look at what could have been causing that exhaust vibration and low and behold:



Pretty good rear main leak for being a brand new rear main with only a week of driving and ~300mi on it lmao. I couldn't find anything the exhaust was hitting either but I ordered a flex section to add into the midpipe since this exhaust did'nt have one in an attempt to mitigate whatever the issue was. I had swapped from my catted midpipe to a catless one while doing the clutch job the first time and so I had plenty of room to add a flex pipe in where the cat was. This midpipe and axle back combo had never gotten along well anyway (it always seemed kinda too short) so this would give me an easy opportunity to add some length to get everything lined up better.

I still couldn't think of why the rear main was leaking since I did everything "right". I used a good quality seal (Mahle) with the correct install tool, I used good quality silicone (Loctite) and let it sit for ~4hrs before running the engine, I used sealant on the flywheel to crank bolts, and I used factory torque specs on all the bolts. Regardless I obviously messed something up so I ordered a new rear main and that flex for the exhaust.

Exactly what you love to see on your brand new clutch:



You can see how clean the oil still is haha. But with everything removed it definitely looked like it was leaking from the silicone'd part. Maybe I didn't use enough? Maybe I didn't let it sit long enough? Not sure... Would be interested in the thoughts of any of the fellow NC homies.




I installed a new rear main (again) and used ol' reliable Hondabond this time. I also let the car sit, without oil, overnight for 16hrs before even filling the car with oil. I used a bit more silicone on the lower section this time also but still tried to be careful since if you overdo it it would just push the silicone right into the oil pan when you install the seal.

Hopefully this is good enough:



Added the flex in to where the cat would be as well. My single exit tip has also always been offset to the inside so I used this opportunity to lengthen the midpipe to get the rear section centered as it should be. Overall I cut out about 0.5" and added a 6" flex. Counting for the amount of slip fit I probably added about 3.5" to the overall length which made everything line up much better.



My buddy has hub stands at the shop so I also double checked the alignment since I am still chasing down what feels like active toe in the rear of the car. I can find any bushings with play using a pry bar and all my alignment adjustments are tight. The car just behaves strangely when transitioning between on and off throttle while its loaded up in the corner. It semi-pushes when on throttle and then goes into a small oversteer-ish moment when you let off but not in like a weight transfer way. It feels like one of the rear corners is toeing in on throttle and out of throttle.



Of course everything was still in spec on the hub stands. Rear camber was within .1* from left to right and my toe was 1/8" in and equal on both sides. There has to be some bushing or ball joint thats moving under load but I'm just not sure which one. Or maybe the NC LSD just feels weird on throttle vs off throttle idk. Any insight here also would be appreciated.

I will get back under the car this week and check on the rear main again and hopefully its not leaking this time... Next up is to try to fix the airbag light from the seat install.

 

Ugh, bummer about the rear main. I've heard lots of similar stories and some of the sages even just saying not to mess with them if they're not leaking. I've never replaced mine in any of my MZR/Duratecs so can't give any firsthand experience. Hopefully you just needed to use a little more silicone. I'm assuming the mating surfaces were both clean?

What'd you use to pop the pilot bearing out of the crank? I'm gonna have to do that soon when I swap the 8HP trans in. Figured I'd give the bread trick a go so I don't have to shave down my slide hammer bearing tool since that bearing is so damn small lol.

In reference to your throttle on/throttle off balance issue, the NC rear suspension toes out under compression. They'll get a little tail happy mid-corner if you run the rear at zero toe. What you're stating doesn't sound like a normal operating parameter for sure, though. Is the wear across your tires consistent? I thought I had blown the hell out of my rear suspension bushings a few months back because the rear end of my car was getting all wiggly and felt like I was driving on flat tires in the canyons. Turns out it was the fried, wavy-*** wear on the old track tires I was running at the time.

 

Yeah I scraped off the old silicone from the top surface of the pan and cleaned it all with brake cleaner. At this point my best guess is I didn't let the silicone set long enough before pouring oil back in it the first time or just didn't use enough. Is what it is. Mostly made more frustrating by the fact both me and my buddy were looking at the non-leaking rear main in the car and he said "You sure you want to change it since its not leaking?" and I should have just listened but the "while I'm in there" bug is a strong one lol.

For the pilot bearing I used the HF pilot bearing puller. I had to grind down the section before the tooth on each arm so it wouldn't just slip off the bearing. As it comes it has a chamfer there for some reason so it would just slip off the bearing instead of holding on to it well. I just ground it to a sharper angle with an angle grinder and it worked great after that. I love HF for having tools cheap enough that I don't care if I have to modify them haha.



I will take a closer look at the tires but I don't remember seeing any strange wear when I removed them last. Good thought though