Coyote Guys; What clutch should I buy? Or do I have something else going on?

Dasfinc

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Sep 28, 2007
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This winter I intend on doing a clutch in my 2013 Mustang GT, and there are a TON of options and opinions, and I was wondering if anyone on here specifically had experience with and recommended one? Or maybe my issues are completely unrelated?

My car has about 22,000 miles on it now; 12,000 of which under my ownership, which has been primarily beating the hell out of it.

The car has a Blowfish Bracket, Barton 2 post shifter, Braided Clutch line (Slave to Master line), Divorced Reservoir (instead of sharing fluid with the brakes).

Between all of that; I never miss gears, it shifts extremely sweetly/crisply when cruising and the pedal doesn't get soft as often when at the drag strip, which is lovely, but I still occasionally get 'locked out' if I'm driving especially hard.

So basically when driving in anger at the track, I shove the clutch to the floor, but it won't let me into the gate for the next gear (grinds if I try to push the shifter into the gate). If I hit the clutch again (slower/more methodically), it lets me into the gate just fine, even at high RPM.

In normal day to day driving, the car behaves 100% fine, no issues. It's just at the strip that I essentially have to shift 'slowly', which obviously is not good for ET's.

I've read a multitude of different things on this, but general consensus is that the stock GT clutch is hot garbage for shifting quickly. I don't see anything glaring about the Slave or Master cylinders being problematic, I don't see any leaks, and the system Self-Bleeds, so I sure feel like it would be a stretch to blame the hydraulics of the clutch system.

and [MENTION=22]syP[/MENTION], this is why I don't have a blower yet!
 

Dave M

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Don't do a twin disk with the MT-82, twin disks and MT-82's are known to not get along well. A Spec stage 1, Mantic, or McLeod RSX is what you're looking for. I'm likely going to swap my clutch this winter too, since now that I have the Boss 302 intake I make power out to 7700, but get lockout at around 7000. I've done a ton of research on this, and an aftermarket single disk is all you need at N/A power levels.
 

Dasfinc

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He's an auto guy now so he's gonna say 6R80 swap. Back when he had an MT82 those were fine, and all the stories of problems were just blown way out of proportion...lol

In all seriousness; The MT-82 by design is a very robust unit in itself and its main shortfalls are caused by the remote mounted shifter, the poorly designed OE Clutch, and sharing fluid with the brakes. The only real well known weakness are that OD gears are made of glass (5th and 6th do not like WOT shifts).

With everything I have done to mine, it shifts like a bolt-action rifle every single shift since, and I'm going to damage syncros if I keep getting locked out at WOT.

I'm running a Spec Stage 1 in mine, so far its cured 100% of the lock-out issues I had experienced prior. I can shift at 7500+ rpms with no issues. Definitely a fan and it was cheap AF from American Muscle.

I really hope and suspect that is the limiting factor here, I've heard the OEM clutches REALLY don't like WOT shifting at redline.

Is your clutch pedal sticking to the floor? I had pretty good success on mine by removing the helper spring.

I actually have the aftermarket helper spring made by Steeda that I plan on installing; but that specific problem was more or less cured over doing the divorced fluid and braided line along with fresh fluid.

Pulling the spring kind of 'masks' the real issue for that specific problem.
 

boostedguy05

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Don't do a twin disk with the MT-82, twin disks and MT-82's are known to not get along well. A Spec stage 1, Mantic, or McLeod RSX is what you're looking for. I'm likely going to swap my clutch this winter too, since now that I have the Boss 302 intake I make power out to 7700, but get lockout at around 7000. I've done a ton of research on this, and an aftermarket single disk is all you need at N/A power levels.



but he "has plans" on being a blower car. why upgrade twice?
 

Dave M

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but he "has plans" on being a blower car. why upgrade twice?

In that case, I personally would still go with a decent single disk, and save my pennies for a TR6060 or Magnum XL. The MT-82 input shaft will snap eventually with blower type power and clutch drops with a twin disk, it needs a little bit of slip to survive as it's only rated for somewhere around 400 ftlbs of torque.
 

Dasfinc

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Sep 28, 2007
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but he "has plans" on being a blower car. why upgrade twice?

In that case, I personally would still go with a decent single disk, and save my pennies for a TR6060 or Magnum XL. The MT-82 input shaft will snap eventually with blower type power and clutch drops with a twin disk, it needs a little bit of slip to survive as it's only rated for somewhere around 400 ftlbs of torque.

I know that when I pull the trigger on a blower; things will 'cascade' as far as breaking weak links. I plan on doing a Magnum XL T56 in the future, but a clutch kit is VASTLY more affordable today and now given that I have a kid on the way, its not smart to dump thousands into go-fast parts.
 

Pressure Ratio

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I had the Spec stage 1 with the lightened steel flywheel in my 2011. It worked great, nice pedal pressure, and help launched well. If a power added is in your future check out the power levels on the stage 2 & 3.

He's an auto guy now so he's gonna say 6R80 swap. Back when he had an MT82 those were fine, and all the stories of problems were just blown way out of proportion...lol

The MT82 is leaps and bounds better than the T5, T46, etc. It is pretty stout. I have only seen a few power adder cars that broke the gears. And the gearing is awesome for that motor. Plastic shift fork pads and shifter stops are to be expected in a production trans. But brass upgrades will help for sure. Not that I think they need to be done to 95% of the cars since most owners are not that serious about racing their cars. Loose clutch pressure plate bolts, pre maturely failed throw out bearings, and syncro issues seemed to have been addressed in later cars.

I have never driven a car that had the clutch stick to the floor. I have had people tell me they had shifting issues and so on. I drove their car and had no issues. So maybe they are used to driving their honda civic and not adapted to driving the MT82. You have to be firm with it. Being gentle isn't going to work to your advantage.

Change out the clutch line, shifter, shifter bracket, and clutch and you should have no issues shifting at 8000 rpm. Power shifting is even possible. Put some money into them and they shift fine That all being said, the trans has issues. Most of them whine bad after you start beating on them. Ford will tell you it is normal. Many I have heard sounded like the car had a Whipple on it. No way is that acceptable.

It is very similar to the Gretag trans the Supra had in it. Guys run 9's on those. But they have narrower gears, different syncros and other things that make that Supra trans that much better than the MT82. But I am sure Ford saved a lot of money there. Obviously, the car was never going to get a Tremec Magnum XL from the factory.

A big draw back to the MT82 for me was the fact the bellhousing is part of the trans case. I couldn't put a SFI scatter shield on that trans. If I was going to continue to launch at 6,000+ rpm, I was not going to do it with that trans. The Magnum XL swap was way too much money for me to be ok with doing that swap. So sadly the 2011 GT went and the auto was picked for the 2015. Even as much as I really wanted a stick, I didn't want to deal with the MT82 anymore. The Camaro has a good trans in it, why can't ford step up? :dunno:
 

Dasfinc

Ready for the EVlution
Sep 28, 2007
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Wheaton, IL
Change out the clutch line, shifter, shifter bracket, and clutch and you should have no issues shifting at 8000 rpm. Power shifting is even possible. Put some money into them and they shift fine That all being said, the trans has issues. Most of them whine bad after you start beating on them. Ford will tell you it is normal. Many I have heard sounded like the car had a Whipple on it. No way is that acceptable.

I've done everything except for the clutch itself; so it sounds like I more or less went 'the right path' on that front.

Both my 14 and my 13 had the clutch go dead on the floor after multiple 1/4 passes, the braided line and fresh fluid definitively helped that quite a bit, but it sounds like the consensus is the same as my initial thought, that the Clutch is the issue at this point.

Is there an MT-82 re-builder in the area that is reputable/reasonable that you are aware of in case there are bigger problems?
 
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