The following information will be usefull to ANYBODY installing an aluminum flywheel and considering the ARP hardware to go with it:
My week started out with a simple tranny, flywheel, clutch swap and ended in frustration, aggravation, a LOT of wasted time, and some wasted money all due to some simple hardware incompatibilities.
The issue is that I've found that one can NOT use ARP bolts with a Fidanza aluminum flywheel.
The flange for the area that bolts to the crank is thicker and makes it so the ARP heads stick out too much and hit the clutch disk hub damper springs as so:
This situation causes it so the car acts like it always has the clutch somewhat engaged so it is VERY difficult to change gears. You will also hear a slight grinding noise as the clutch does engage(gee...dunno what THAT could be!). The clutch may also slip under high load. It acts a LOT like a faulty pressure plate.
The other issue I had was that the ARP pressure plate bolts were too long. They bottomed out before sungging up against the pressure plate. I used grade-5 washers under them and that seemed to work for the install of the above clutch.(I forgot to take pictures of this) However, when I had to pull all of this back apart, I decided to install a 6-puck ceramic clutch and a new dual diaphragm TIII pressure plate. When I did this I reverted back to stock MOPAR factory hardware with no such issues.
So, the lesson here is with an aluminum flywheel to use the stock bolts for both the crank and the pressure plate. It kind of bothers me this info is not more readily available. If I would have known this stuff before I would not have wasted money on the ARP stuff and I also would not have been forced to waste 3 days of my time trying to remedy the problem it caused. This is not to mention the money I spent on a new clutch and pressure plate that I evidently did not really need(though I installed it becuase I had it).
I think with a stock flywheel the ARP stuff would work fine, but I don't know that for fact.
My week started out with a simple tranny, flywheel, clutch swap and ended in frustration, aggravation, a LOT of wasted time, and some wasted money all due to some simple hardware incompatibilities.
The issue is that I've found that one can NOT use ARP bolts with a Fidanza aluminum flywheel.
The flange for the area that bolts to the crank is thicker and makes it so the ARP heads stick out too much and hit the clutch disk hub damper springs as so:





This situation causes it so the car acts like it always has the clutch somewhat engaged so it is VERY difficult to change gears. You will also hear a slight grinding noise as the clutch does engage(gee...dunno what THAT could be!). The clutch may also slip under high load. It acts a LOT like a faulty pressure plate.
The other issue I had was that the ARP pressure plate bolts were too long. They bottomed out before sungging up against the pressure plate. I used grade-5 washers under them and that seemed to work for the install of the above clutch.(I forgot to take pictures of this) However, when I had to pull all of this back apart, I decided to install a 6-puck ceramic clutch and a new dual diaphragm TIII pressure plate. When I did this I reverted back to stock MOPAR factory hardware with no such issues.
So, the lesson here is with an aluminum flywheel to use the stock bolts for both the crank and the pressure plate. It kind of bothers me this info is not more readily available. If I would have known this stuff before I would not have wasted money on the ARP stuff and I also would not have been forced to waste 3 days of my time trying to remedy the problem it caused. This is not to mention the money I spent on a new clutch and pressure plate that I evidently did not really need(though I installed it becuase I had it).
I think with a stock flywheel the ARP stuff would work fine, but I don't know that for fact.