1.6 vs 1.8 Clutch?
 

i found a few posts on this with no definite answer and im guessing its more preference than anything. I need a new clutch to go behind my turbo mill. im looking at about 300-350 whp and was wondering what everyone recommended. Ill be going with an ACT extreme pp (475 whp rating) i was unsure of the size I should be looking into. The 1.6 clutch is smaller, which means lighter but not by much. 1.8 is slightly larger which means more clamping surface area but a little more weight. flywheel will be 10 (give or take a few) lbs. Will it matter at all if i went with the smaller clutch as far as gripping surface/power? thanks

in interested in this also as im planning to rebuild my clutch

Fmii

I just got a new clutch for my jrsc 1.6 and I went with the 1.8 Exedy Stage 1.
Of course, my car only makes about 145 whp/140 ft lb (on a Dynodynamics dyno). Still, I had a 1.8 stock clutch *upgrade* after I got the blower and the existing stock 1.6 clutch quickly became toast.
The 1.8 stock clutch only lasted about 20K miles before it went to join it's little brother.
The new *stage 1* clutch feels better and seems to grab pretty good, but for the HP you want, I would definitely use a *much* stronger clutch. With 300+ hp, I doubt that the extra weight of the 1.8 vs the 1.6 would make any discernible difference.... Kind of like a bird landing on an elephant ;)

I don't know about the clutches most ppl use on Miatas, but when I had EVO VIII's the sh*t to have was the dual CF disk stuff from Cusco or Exedy. Apparently you can get decent driveability with incredible power handling.

Is your car a 1.6 or 1.8? You need to match the flywheel to the clutch, that is to say you can have a 1.8 clutch on a 1.6 car, but you'll also need the 1.8 flywheel, see what I'm on about?
I think thats what your asking...

Pretty sure he knows that, at least it sounds like he does. I don't know of many 1.6 clutches that will handle 300 HP, much less anything over that. Same thing thing goes for the rods. They can handle 300hp, but that doesn't mean we're going to suggest you keep them.

Another consideration is that a lot of the clutch developemet has been on the 1.8 size. For example FM, I don't think they offer their best clutch in the 1.6 size.

with more surface will the 1.8 give you more life out of the clutch as well?

I would think so.

Yes I know the 1.6-1.8 needs to have the right flywheel ect. I guess I'm looking for a 1.8 clutch then

1.6l Fidanza flywheel = ~ 7 lbs
1.8L Fidanza flywheel = ~ 9 lbs.

Not only are the 1.6l parts lighter the mass that is there is closer to the center resulting in even less MOI.

I’m using a 1.6l ACT extreme 4 Puck with a car putting out 320 ft-lbs of torque at 4200 rpm It is plenty drivable for me on the street and seems to hold the torque well.

Only issues I have had are the sprung centers seem to be the week link with rivets and springs wanting to come apart. Switching to a non-sprung center eliminates the slide hammer effect of the springs bottoming out hard but results in lots of drivetrain buzz at around 3500 rpm that you have to live with.