quote:Some people think that a high value or "racing" pressure plate is better but all you get is a sore foot if you do not have an engine in front of it that requires one. Your engine horsepower, torque, traction availability and use (street or racing), should determine the pressure plate that you need resulting in the lowest possible clutch pedal effort.
Absolutey agree; nothing makes driving a car less fun than a too-stiff clutch for the job, especially around town. And consider: all the reaction force from pushing in a really stiff clutch pedal goes into the flywheel, then the crank, and finally against the crankshaft thrust bearing. Which is the only crank bearing NOT pressure-fed oil....
"Stiff" competition clutches are around 2600+ lbs, performance units are around 2000-2200 lbs and OEM are (I think) around 1600 lbs. That's a LOT of force to react into a small surface area leakage-fed bearing, and the OEM over-center linkage does not reduce it, at least initially. In fact, the leverage causes initial force to go up. Pedal force reduces after you mat the clutch pedal but the same (high) amount of reaction force is pushing against the bearing.