Well I decided to drive from my home in SW Ohio to Charleston WV to pick up another project car since I was sick of modding my daily driven MINI to a point of less practicality.

Apparently all the hills plus whatever extra torque I am making over stock managed to destroy the clutch. Heard some strange sounds as soon as I was in town and checked everything but nothing seemed unordinary, except for my shifter seemed to be a bit more notchy.

I had a friend drive my R53 home while I drove the new car (91 RX-7 if anyones interested). Parked the MINI for about 2 days while I got acquainted with my new car. This was the longest adventure I've ever taken the MINI on (around 400mi) and it ended up burning a bit of oil but thats another issue.

I then drove the MINI to pick up some parts for the new car while it was torn apart and noticed some rev hang when I shifted to 2nd after the clutch was all the way out.

Then, worrying the clutch was gone, I put it in 3rd and rolled on the throttle. At 10psi revs jumped way up. I shifted into fifth to confirm. Once again 10psi rev jumped from 3-5k let off and it was just above 3k. Tried once more in disbelief that a clutch would go at barely over 50k and once again slippage. I proceeded to smell clutch afterwards...babied it home and parked it.

I now need to figure out what I'm going to do. I need a new clutch and flywheel. I'm looking for a lighter flywheel and a stiffer clutch so that the clutch doesnt explode with no warning when encountering extended periods of boost.

Long story short: I need a new flywheel/clutch. What are your opinions on what I should do? I am not ever going to buy stock MINI parts due to inferior quality and overpricing. Any comments/suggestions are appreciated.

 

I went with the valeo with the single mass flywheel, it cost about 400 shipped from eBay. Also going to have quaife lsd installed as well. Have heard good things about the kit from helix who is doing the job.