[coxster]

The clutch and flywheel had ~20K miles on them when my son took my car for a drive, dumped the clutch several times (apparently - never got a convincing story) and fused the clutch to the flywheel. The clutch obviously needs to be replaced, but what about the flywheel? The car sat for about nine months before I started working on it - could the discolouration be due to the amount of time the car sat with the clutch plate stuck to the flywheel?

[porsche959]

yes. i know nothing about flywheels. but judging from looks alone. yes.

[Welcome to NBA Jam]

That flywheel looks pretty bad. I can't tell entirely but are those heat/stress cracks around it? He must've dumped the clutch both hard and a lot of times. I'd replace it for sure.

[coxster]

Thanks for the advice. I was afraid that was going to be the consensus answer - didn't really want to drop several hundred on a new flywheel. I can't really tell about what appears to be cracking/chipping around the edges - I see it now that I'm looking closer at the pic. I'm too beat to get back under the car tonight and run my finger around the edges.

[Phyrexia]

You could consider the Valeo single-mass-flywheel conversion kit, which is considerably cheaper than a new DMF and Luk clutch kit.

[coxster]

Yeah the Valeo looks like a good deal cheaper that other options. However, since I'm thinking of going FBO, I'm thinking about getting the Turner lightweight SMFW and the 335is/550i clutch. Not sure what to do.

[hassmaschine]

If you've got it all apart - I'd replace it. You don't want to do this twice.

Also, I hope your son is under there busting his ass helping you fix it.

Honestly, he had to have done more than just dump the clutch a few times to do that much damage. I've dumped the clutch doing hard launches 100s of times in my E30, and not with mercy either (I had race slicks on too). That clutch still works fine in normal use with nearly 100k miles. It does slip now if I side step the clutch at 6500rpm, but as hard as I've beat on it I'm not complaining..

[Efthreeoh]

Fused the clutch disk to the flywheel...

I'd take a look at the other components south of the clutch. Driveshaft and Halfshafts mostly.

[Biginboca]

I found a video of the incident your son posted online...

[nsjames]

sounds like he watched the hoonigan channel and learned what clutch kicking is.

that whole setup is fragged.

[coxster]

Yeah it probably would have been sad/funny to actually get it on video. I'm sure it was close to what that guy did to that poor Vette.

[Phyrexia]

Originally Posted by coxster

... going FBO ...

Not before you find a good place to secure those keys, I presume.

As far as going fast goes, I like the phrase, "buy once, cry once," but I did take it too far with a $10,000 $200 RX7 when I was young and dumb(er), probably your son's age now