Looking for more info on flywheels and clutch plates

[DavidPartay]

Hey guys,

I've been trying to do as much research as I can by searching and not asking too much questions, but as I'm planning on doing my manual conversion around New Years and trying to avoid spending as much money as possible in order to get the bulk of the work done when the car won't be needed, I figure I should start asking questions early .

Basically, the situation as I understand it is that I'll need to get all the parts and it would be wise to get a new flywheel and clutch plate.

I'm budgeting $1600 for the parts, and hoping to get them cheaper than that, but that's not including the price of a new flywheel and clutch plate which I know will set me back up to $1k for both.

What I'm hoping for is to be able to do the manual conversion with all of the second hand parts, and then replace the clutch and flywheel at a later date if necessary.

From my limited understanding, the flywheel for the Ecotec is non-serviceable. Exactly what sort of wear and tear are we talking about here?

I'm hoping to get the parts from a VT - VY manual with no more than 150k on the clock, obviously less is better. Is there any reason a well driven manual gearbox (ie. from someone who actually knows how to change gears properly) would not fit well in my car?

[Simonn]

sorry cant answer any of your questions but I do suggest you go for a heavy duty clutch with solid flywheel if your going to be giving abit to the car. Nothernclutchandbranke on ebay sell the complete kit for about $990.

[danja]

You are correct, the stock Ecotec flywheel is dual-mass and non-machinable, meaning when it's worn/grooved, you need a new one. The manual flywheel is also different to the auto flywheel, so you can't carry these over from your existing setup.

If you go to a HD clutch, they pretty much all come with a single mass flywheel, and yes this will set you back about $800-1000. When you're buying parts, you can try and save some cash by not getting the flywheel/clutch as part of the kit, if you're lucky they'll take a hundred bucks or so off the price of the kit. That way you may be able to afford it all in one hit.

[delcowizzid]

you may want to factor in tuning etc to suit manual as you will get all sorts of funny error codes etc when you do the swap

[danja]

you may want to factor in tuning etc to suit manual as you will get all sorts of funny error codes etc when you do the swap

When I did my conversion the kit included the manual ECU + memcal and wiring loom (plus all the mechanical parts obviously). It was a while ago now but I think I paid $2000 for all that, with warranty (which was lucky because the flywheel was rooted ).

[DavidPartay]

Thanks for the info, guys.

Definitely sounds like the HD clutch + flywheel are the best course of action, which I don't so much as long as I can afford it. Hopefully rego and insurance are a bit cheaper than I'm expecting them to be this year as I'm turning 25 very soon . I may be able to defer a couple more expenses to enable me to get the money for the other stuff sooner.

I had factored in the tuning as being something I could do afterwards, as we're going to do the labour ourselves, but I also figured the car would at least be driveable even without the correct tune as long as we modified the loom properly.