[Barry @ ECT]

I really wanted to post some pictures here of this unit we wrapped up last week. As I've talked about before, this has quickly become my favorite style clutch for the Gallardo, especially the E-gear cars. This is not your standard Kevlar clutch like many others (including us) make. This is our upgraded Dual Friction unit which uses a special combo pairing a ceramic clutch disc with a Kevlar clutch disc. The end result is something that drives like stock, outlasts even a Kevlar assembly, and withstands serious abuse. The best part in my opinion is that it's much more resistant to the sloppy PIS settings that many of the 04-08 E-gear Lamborghini Gallardo's are plagued with.
This has also been a great solution for the exotic car rental companies as they needed something that would engage/drive just like stock but withstand the abuse one would expect an exotic rental to sustain in its life (and the inexperienced drivers behind the wheel). If you would like to hear first hand how great these are, just ask John Nouri (owner of Broadway Supercars and Broadway Performance) as he has one in their Lamborghini Gallardo Rental.

Anyways, this particular multi puck ceramic/Kevlar clutch assembly is going in the Daily Driven Exotics Lamborghini Gallardo (you can look them up on Facebook). It's going to be used in a series of what is sure to be viral videos featuring dirt rally, gymkhana, etc....will be epic! Stay tuned for pics throughout the install of the clutch as well as some awesome vids. Here are the pics of that assembly.

Here is one of the teaser vids with a bit of dirt rally from this car in the meantime...

EDIT: NEW TEASER VID!!

 

[Barry @ ECT]

If you missed the latest practice session...

 

[LAUTLOS]

From the pictures it looks like the darker areas are the tallest, and
therefore the only ones making contact? If so, then that appears to
be less total contact surface area than usual? If so, then why is that
considered a good thing?

 

[Barry @ ECT]

From the pictures it looks like the darker areas are the tallest, and
therefore the only ones making contact? If so, then that appears to
be less total contact surface area than usual? If so, then why is that
considered a good thing?

That's a good question, thanks for asking. The taller portion you see is the ceramic. On the ECT Dual Friction assemblies, the top side exposed disc is the ceramic disc, and the disc under it that isn't currently visible is the Kevlar disc. The ceramic disc is a multi-puck design...somewhat similar to the segmented Kevlar disc we use on our ECT Kevlar Murcielago assemblies like seen here:

The overall surface area of friction material isn't nearly as important as you'd think in the list of variables for expected life of a clutch. As a matter of fact, one huge benefit is the friction material dissipates heat much faster in a multi-puck design than it will as a solid disc..thus holding better. It also works well with the stock pressure plate and is less rotational mass while still providing excellent grip and engagement. We actually had a full faced disc in a car at ~1,000hp that under extreme long pulls (like for a mile run), it finally started slipping the clutch. The ONLY change we made was to a segmented disc so there were gaps like that, and the cooler temp the friction material now operated at allowed for better grip/engagement and eliminated ALL slippage under throttle. So, that's the scoop.