Now in to comparision to the OEM clutch set and hardtopguys, ( being that the whole setup isnt OEM) will this have and disadvantages from all OEM pieces? Cause i think my clutch is gone, 70k miles and the clutch pedal is very limp and barely engages pressed all teh way to the floor. I use my S as my daily so anything that would last longer and be better than OEM, id like to know, otherwise i think OEM might be the way to go?

 

Hoist is not a requirement. But with jackstands, the higher the better so get the sturdy tall ones, NOT the short ones extended to tallest position.

Get a LOT of extensions, 1/2" and 3/8", and a couple of flexible ones (ballish type head) one for each size. They make life much easier for the starter upper bolt (3/8" drive) and top tranny bolts (1/2" drive).

The white hard-plastic ring around the rubber shift boot snaps to the chassis by tabs you can easily release by inserting a flat-blade screwdriver straight down between the 4 tabs between the white ring and the rubber. Pull the rubber boot away from the ring and towards the shifting rod and take a good look at the slot between the white ring and you'll see what I mean. Without releasing those tabs, you won't get the white ring off. Don't ask me how I know and I still feel stupid about it now.

I thought about not removing the A/C compressor but didn't know if the A/C lines will be stretched much when dropping the subframe completed with engine. Same for disconnecting the couple of connectors at the back of the valve cover and the air pump plastic hose.

Remove all 3 frontmost 10mm bolts of the black header heat shield on the chasssis side before removing the unpainted heat shield on the header side. Once those 3 bolts were removed, you can pull the black heat shield a bit away from the header enough to stick in a long extension for the top 2 12mm bolts on the header shield, making life much easier to remove them.

The upper starter bolt is a pain to get to. I could barely see the starter from the engine compartment, let alone estimating the upper bolt position. What I did was to hook up 3/8" extensions (ballish type head in the front) long enough to drive in front of the engine. Have one person crawl underneath the car and feel the starter upper bolt by hand (easier to see the starter from below). Have the other person slowly move in the train of extensions so that the first person do the final coupling to the bolt in the dark. Hecash's idea of pulling the auto-tensioner assembly may be a better solution.

Use a train of 1/2" extensions to loosen/tighten the couple top tranny bolts. An impact wrench makes life much easier loosening those but not a requirement. Just make sure to guide the train of extensions so that they won't "derail".

Clutch alignment tool is not mandatory. In fact, we've used it less than a handful of times out of our 15+ clutch jobs and most (if not all) of those times we ended up not able to get the tranny in and had to back it out to re-align with my naked eye which always work perfect. But then I'm known to be able to do front and rear toe alignment by naked eye ONLY and the cars always go dead straight after that.

When I was tightening the subframe bolts, some dirt wedged into the threads and I started to need too much torque just to pull the bolt up. In fear of ruining the threads, I had no choice (even after going back-and-forth on the bolt) but to remove the bolt altogether, clean the threads thoroughly, blow compressed air into bolt hole on the chassis, and apply WD40 and anti-seize in order to get the bolt going. I can't afford to force the bolt in and strip the thread on the chassis.

If you have limited front camber on the driver side like I do, this is the time to pry the subframe towards the driver side when tightening. I gained another 0.1 degree left front camber in the end.

I think that's about all I can think of. I'm glad that the clutch job on the S2000 went much smoother than I initially expected.

 

Saving link to this thread.

Thanks for the tips!!!

 

i was looking at the hardtopguy kit and along with the lightened flywheel it has the act "heavy duty" clutch. my s is a daily driver, and i sit in traffic sometimes on I-275, lots of stop-and-start driving. the s is bad enough under these circumstances stock, and i was wondering if these non-stock parts would make it less drivable under these circumstances?

i don't mind some increased clutch pedal pressure, but a buddy had an aftermarket pressure plate in his integra and it was brutal. i've also heard of lightened flywheels causing problems with drivability also.

 

[QUOTE=liquid_iq,Sep 13 2005, 08:18 AM] i was looking at the hardtopguy kit and along with the lightened flywheel it has the act "heavy duty" clutch.

 

I have the HTG kit, as do many of my customers.

Not a single driveability issue. The pedal effort is a little more, but has never been an issue in stop and go traffic. For us anyway....

 

Good to hear - my HTG clutch kit is being installed today...