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defected flywheel : BEWARE of ActionClutch Products
so last year when i decided to boost my car( APS TT kit) i also decided to buy an action acr flywheel and Action 6 puck clutch from Action Clutch Racing recommended by my distributor.
When the car was all put together with its new setup we took the car to get tuned. The car was having a hard time with smooth start up. The tuner was even getting aggravated with it on the dyno. He managed to band -aid something and got the car going . (unsure of what he did exactly). The car made 365hp and 302 tq on 7.5 lbs of boost. Since then i had been driving the car like normal however the car has always had startup hesitation and on some days i would even have to pump the gas pedal while cranking it over to get it started. Its my daily driver and the car still drove fine so i just dealt with it. Had no idea what the issue was.
Now a lil over a year later down the road my car started making ugly noises comming from the drivetrain. It sounded like i had rod knock...it was that bad...So we dropped the tranny to find out what was wrong. Well the flywheel came loose. The mechanic who had installed the flywheel apparently didnt lock tight the bolts ( okay this of course has nothing to do with the manufacturer of the flywheel. ) The thing is that my flywheel has 2 holes. One is bigger than the other and is off centered. The smaller one fits perfectly snug for the dowel pin and is centered. It was installed on the bigger hole so when the flywheel came loose it snapped the dowel pin. hmm ...okay so my first thought : the guy just installed it wrong lets put it on the smaller hole (common sense). Now the car doesnt start. .....
The car will start with the crank sensor unplugged. So maybe a bad sensor? wrong ... tryed multiple sensors and the car still doesnt want to start. So must be the flywheel because thats what the sensor reads?
Well before taking the tranny back down i took the car to my tuner. I figured maybe it just needs a retune and timing is off because the car was tuned with the flywheel on incorrectly. ....tuner couldnt do anything, he came to the conclusion that it must also be the flywheel. He even told me to try to go to the dealer to see what the sensor is reading because he can't through uprev.
So now that i wasted my time trailoring the car up to my tuner i then contacted Action Clutch and asked them which hole is correct because the hole that fits right makes the car not want to start and the bigger hole snaps dowel pins. They then claimed that it should only have one hole ...so clearly it is a defective flywheel.
My distributor then called Action to try to get me a new flywheel.....Of course even after the fact that they admitted its suppose to have one hole they were going to go through every single excuse to not give me a knew one.
excuse one: First it was well "if" it were defective then you should have contacted us right away. Well there is no "if" ...it IS defective as verified by them directly.
2nd excuse : Then it was well its the mechanics fault.....If it hadn't come loose i wouldnt even know that there was a problem with it because the car still ran. And it is not the mechanics fault that they made the flywheel wrong . Yes it is his fault it came loose but he is just hired to install it. Its not his fault it has 2 holes.
3rd excuse : its past warranty .....whats funny with this excuse is that they dont keep records of purchases apparently. They had to ask ME when i bought it. I was honest and told them it was some time last year. I was better off lying and saying it was last week. I guess i screwed myself there cuz they would had given me a new one lol. smh I dont understand why the warranty even matters because it was defective to begin with. I could understand if it was a wearing issue but its not. weather i got it yesterday , today , last year ect , the part left the factory with 2 holes when it should of had one and no amount of time will change that.
4th excuse: put it back on the big hole .....okay so they want me to drop the tranny again to put it back on the way it was so the car could go back to having a shitty startup not to mention it could eventually snap the dowel pin again.
fianlly: the best excuse of them all ....its not their flywheel...LMAO so now i'm a liar and so is my distributor... i still have the damn boxes it came in. They had no problem claiming it was their product when they advertised my car on their instagram page but they cant own up to it when theres an issue.
A defective flywheel was the last thing i would of thought
here are the pictures i had sent to them:
the snapped dowel pin is on the side of the holes to show the difference in sizes
This was just soo rediculous i wasted not only my money but my time and now im stuck having to pull the tranny back down and getting a new flywheel . Had i known that it was the flywheel that was defective the whole time , the car would have been done weeks ago.
well the car originally had a jimwolf , i already bought the new plate for it so im going to throw that back on. Its actually even lighter than the action one as well. the only reason i didnt reuse it to begin with was because of its chatter. and since i had bought the action clutch i just wanted everything to match up. Once i take the car back apart im going to compare the 2 flywheels side by side. My guess is that the timing ring on the action flywheel must be screwed up too.
Here is the jimwolf flywheel notice how the FWD Application hole is blocked off .<br/> also notice how both fwd and rwd locations are the same size and are centered <br/>Both locations are also close together where on the action flywheel the holes a further apart from eachother <br/><br/>When the action flywheel comes out i will take a look at the timing ring and compare
I dont understand how it even bolted up with that level of misalignment (if i am understanding correctly and your pin sheared in the wrong hole).
Not saying there arent quality issues with the part you installed, but if i were in your shoes i would probably be ranting about your installer. It sounds like he is a weak link in the chain.
And sorry but if I were the fly manufacturer I would be hard pressed to just send you a replacement at this stage in the game, unless you can prove the flywheel was truly manufactured incorrectly (extra hole is fine as long as there is one in the correct loc as related to the proper orientation)
It had still lined up because the hole was too big so even tho the hole was off centered the dowel pin was able to fit in it and the flywheel still lined up to the bolt holes fine. Its hard to explain . If u look at the big hole it still meets the center because of the fact its big. There was just some extra space so when it came loose the flywheel bounced around on the dowel pin and snapped it . Its not the mechanics fault because the flywheel was still able to line up. It just was by luck that he put it in that hole and the car happened to still run but like i said it always had a starting issue. Btw this guy did get fired
Trust me i was upset with him to because its his fault it even came loose but i cant be upset with him for the flywheel being made wrong. If he had put it on the small hole to begin with then right then and there we coulda knew right away that there was something wrong with it because he woulda found that the car wont start like that. Again once the action flywheel comes back out im going to look at the 2 flywheels very closey side by side . Thats just some differences im noticing so far
Okay so jwt flywheel is on the bottom and action is on top
This is the small hole lined up with the location of the hole on the jwt .....this is why the car wont start on the small hole ....the timing rings dont match up at all
This is the big hole lined up with the jwt , this is why the car did start on the big hole , the timing rings are matched up . so looks like someone was just sleeping when they made the flywheel that day and put the correct size hole in the wrong location and then put an oversized hole in what appears to be the right location
So with the jimwolf flywheel on the car i had to get retuned ......the car made 365/302 with the action flywheel. It now makes 385/350, an extra 50ft lbs of tq on same amount of boost and same tuner! And let me tell u what a difference that makes. Kaizen tuning did a great job So to put it in simple words that flywheel was absolutely ****ed up no doubt.
Here are the before and after dyno charts
07-22-2015, 01:07 PM
defected flywheel : BEWARE of ActionClutch Products
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So to put it in simple words that flywheel was absolutely ****ed up no doubt. 
