It takes about 30 seconds to test for a dead clutch. I would do that first.

Just do what Warrtalon said: floor it while cruising in 5th gear, if the RPMs rise without the car speeding up when boost rises then it is the clutch. If that does not happen then you can start looking at other things.

-Paul

 

+1

 

yeah, the rpms jump up a couple hundred on their own with no effect on speed. I still might have it checked for a vacuum leak though. I've experienced a clutch going out on a old celica that had extreme slippage until the car wouldn't even move, so with this slip being so minor I didn't think it could be the clutch. My first time posting and am impressed with everyone's responses. Thanks for helping me out.

 

It never hurts to do a boost leak test, as most cars have some leaks from the factory. It's a bummer about your clutch. There is a lot of good info on the boards about aftermarket clutches, do a lot of research before you pick one as the install costs are typically pretty high.

-Paul

 

When my clutch started to slip, it was really minor. Wasnt really that bad. My friends and I went to the Strip Club about 15 miles away from our area. Was coming back home and it wasnt really all that bad but it did get a little worse. Next Day I was gonna go to the store, drove it out of my driveway, it was just like last night (not that bad or that noticeable), turned the corner, got onto the Busy Main street, was in 1st and floored gas all the way to redline and the car barely moved at like 5mph. I drove 5 mph home and couldnt get my car up my driveway into the garage...smoke coming from the trannyand hood vent and clutch smelling bad...all that in 1 day and clutch barely started to slip.

 

thanks for your feedback ricer. nice short film.

 

If it does turn out to be your clutch, I would seriously give some consideration to your driving style. I replaced my clutch at about 18,000 miles because an opportunity presented itself. My stock one was still holding fine and believe me, it got a workout.

Also, since you only have 11,000 miles, you should still be under warranty if you haven't done a bunch of mods, so check out RRE's no-name clutch. It pretty much looks stock so if you have any future problems, it won't stick out like a sore thumb when the dealer has your car apart.

http://www.roadraceengineering.com/evo/nonameclutch.htm

 

the sad reality is setting in for me that my clutch is also slipping just like in this thread was looking for some other reason but the symptoms posted here are just like what has been happening to me for the past 2 weeks... had a starter problem turned out it was corrosion on my battery terminals was kind of hoping that that was the cause of my clutch problems and that my cluctch waasn't really starting to fail any way have an 04 evo 8 with 14500 miles.

 

Wow, I just don't get it. I definitely worked my car hard for 18,000+ miles and the stock clutch never slipped once, even with several bolt-on mods (~280whp) I only replaced it because of an unbeatable deal on an Exedy Twin. When I pulled the stock one out at 18k, it looked great.

What are you people doing to your clutches?

 

Driving the car how its ment to be driven, 5 to 7k miles should do it in if you drive agressive.

 

Clutch #2 (ACT) is now toast for me! 9500 miles of driving the dog mess out of it...

 

HAHAHAHAHA

riiiiight, I bet that's how it was meant to be driven. I guess I was just lucky to get 18k out of the stock clutch in spite of dozens of 12.7-13.0 sec drag passes and a couple of amateur autocrosses.

These guys are cooking stock clutches with very minimal mods. I could see if you have 350 or more whp, sure the stock clutch won't take that for very long, but with typical bolt-ons, there is no reason for it to go so quickly unless you don't know how to drive.

 

that's because your celica probrably wasn't turbocharged and probrably didn't have a massive increase in torque upon spoolup to cause the slippage. the start of a slipping clutch is when it is under the most load, all motor cars torque curves are quite different from a turbocharged one.

 

clutch wouldn't drop the rpms would it? what is a tach stall? and why would that happen with a slipping clutch... wouldn't the tach just rise?

 

Its definately your clutch- mine did the same thing @ 18,000 miles.. when it first started it would do exactly as you described-- at like 3500 rpms or maybe 4000 it would slip causing the rpms to suddenly lower then once it caught a second or two later, the rpms would come back up.

that being said. Which clutch would you guys recommend?? I want to eventually do cams and possibly a bigger turbo-- max power Id ever want is 400-450.
Will ACT be good enough? or is exedy a better choice? and also, if ACT will work, which model?

Thanks