I've done many clutches on many different cars, and always bolted em on any old way, always been fine without fail every time.

Gab

Just heard back from ClutchIndustries engineer.

He said essentially that they don't counterbalance any ford factory weight offset, they balance their pressure plates as standalone units so you can stick-em on any old way..

Makes me think that if you were gonna build a high reving internally balanced I6 and your not using a factory pressure plate.. it might be worth getting the flywheel and pressure plate balanced as one unit because if there is a flywheel weight offset as both ford and gregories manuals suggest, it isn't fixed by bolting on a CI pressure plate.

sigh, wasted three hours discovering that... oh well, clutch is on now, about to slide the gearbox onto the engine.

That's what makes me think the detail in the manuals is referring to the V8, the I6, by design, is 100% balanced so there is no need for external balancing like the V8's.

I see what you mean.... but both the gregories and the Ford genuine manual are specific only to the i6... typos maybe?


Also don't know because the i6 flywheel does have a alignment mark near one of it's bolts and the factory pressure plate did have the paint dot....

don't think it makes much difference in real world terms, but all the evidence really does indicate that when ford designed it, they made it so that the flywheel weight offset fixed the pressure plate weight offset.

Times change... Manufacturing processes change... Designs change...

Maybe they are doing things now they couldnt get right back in the day.

Possibly.

On engines that are not naturally balanced like the I6, there is usually a right & wrong way to install the clutch. I've never had a problem with a I6 engine, with just slapping the clutch setup on loose, then aligning it, and doing the bolts up tight.

Cheers

ToranaGuy