A friend of mine is an auto shop teacher at a local high school. Since he's a Chevy guy and I'm the only Ford guy he knows he asked what clutch to recommend to one of his students that has a lifted 78 with a 400 and a 4spd.

Any chance you guys could give me some help on this one? I've got a newer auto and all the guys I know with handshakers have diesels and run southbend clutches.

 

LEK clutches are good from what I heard.

 

I run a Hayes truck clutch. These are good for a stock to mildly enhanced engine, and should work well for the following reasons.

The Hayes is built with a thicker pressure plate, and stronger springs in the pressure plate as well. This plus a mildly more aggressive clutch material gives you the grip to hold a mild to moderately built motor. It also allows you to feather a little extra clutch to get a load moving as more steel in the pressure plate will hold more heat. Only downside is it's harder to hold the pedal down, so stop and go traffic becomes more of a chore.

I would not go with a Centerforce or the like because the 400 is more of a torque motor. It makes torque early and in stock form doesn't make a lot of horsepower comparatively. Furthermore building the engine lends itself to making BIG torque early in the RPM band unless you do a bunch of work to fight this. A Centerforce doesn't get the extra holding power of the weights until it spins up. This is good for a 302 or other small, high RPM motor. Not so much for a long stroke big block with a slower RPM band.

Ram makes good clutches from what I hear as well, I just went with the Hayes because it seemed to be truck specific. I've flogged the thing for several years now and it hasn't skipped a beat.

 

Passed the above information along and he seems to be satisfied. Thanks, guys.

 

Pete, I run a centerforce on my '79 and have great success with it. Billet flywheel as well.