my evo VIII currently have an ACT HDSS street clutch since 2006. just yesterday, i felt/heard a low, sudden buzzing noise in my clutch ,which happens around the middle part of the clutch travel as i slowly release the clutch after I already put the gear into the next lower gear, whenever i downshift normally from 4th gear to 3rd gear or from 3rd gear to 2nd gear (low speed). all the upshifts form 1st to 5th gear don't create that noise and the overall use of the clutch and its engagement feels just fine with me. do you guys think that this noise that i am hearing indicates that it is now time for me to have a brand new clutch installed in my evo or can the noise problem be remedied by something else? thanks for all your future inputs on this one.

 

there is almost no such thing as a "minor" clutch issue in an evo. The clutch is time consuming (read expensive) to get to. So even if nothing is broken getting in there to fix it is the real kick in the pants.

I find it odd that it only makes the noise on downshifts because from the clutch's perspective there is almost no difference between an upshift or a downshift. Try to take
a video or something. How many miles are on the clutch? Do you launch it often? If you put the car in 5th gear and floor it, does the clutch slip? How consistent is the noise? All the time, every time?, only during the first 20min of driving? Has the car been sitting outside for a good period of time and you just recently started driving it again?

 

well, you have a point there that there is no such thing as a "minor" clutch issue. my bad.
i don't know how many miles on my clutch but it has been 6 years already since i have them installed. i don't actually hear the noise that i was talking about before when after i downshift. the last time i heard them was thursday (July 5) afternoon. I very rarely launch the car from a standstill. if my car is in 5th gear and I floor it, the clutch works fine and does not slip.I always drive my car everyday but not in an aggressive manner.

 

had the car been sitting? if the problem is intermittent its going to be almost impossible to diagnose, might as well just keep going until something actually breaks. Have fun!

Really tho it could be a number of things. The disc or flywheel could be warped, the flywheel might have had some surface rust on it if it had been sitting. Or maybe it was just a fluke of the car. Point is, if its not happening often or badly enough to cause a problem with driving it, I would just wait.

It's like my wife's sister.....
Her: "Hey I heard a noise going around a corner".
Me: "The car drive alright?"
Her: "Yeah, it drives fine"
Me: "You hear it a second time?"
Her: "No"
Me: "Ok....."
Her: "Can you look at it?"
Me: "Look at what?"
Her: "The noise *******"
Me: "Sure show it to me"
Her: "How?"
Me: "Exactly"
Her: "Dick"

Moral of the story, is even if it is a symptom of a coming problem, without the problem its about impossible to locate.

 

I get what you're saying. i actually don't hear the noise now and the clutch functions properly so far even when going up hill at 1st gear from stop and through all the shifting after that.