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Driving home down the highway, going about 70 (who knows, speedo is WAY off). Accelerate through a merge and the car hits a wall, like it hit fuel cut, but theres no way, i was <15lbs of boost and 1/2 throttle in 5th. 9 counts of knock (I assume it was the jarring and noise made that tripped the sensor), oil press. is fine.
Get off the highway and shut off the music and hear a BIG grinding noise. At this point I'm freaking the fuck out. Pull into a gas station and shut it off, wait a minute, and check the oil and there were no metal shavings.
Ill get to the point. My clutch throw out bearing has always made a little bit of noise, enough to be noticeable at times but not so loud that its distracting. Listening while idling and driving, the noise, which is loud as HELL, goes away when I hit the clutch, so I assume its just the TOB getting worse. I have a vid but it's being optimized.
How much noise is too much for the TOB? I know some people drive around with it being noisy. I can replace it (i have to throw in an upgraded clutch anyways), I just cant take the time now and I'm a little overwhelmed by the job anyways.
Opinions? Im just looking for verification that its the TOB and how much longer I can drive it if needed. Vid to come soon (hopefully). Thanks for any help.

Forgot to add, it runs,drives, and shifts fine.

Edit: Vid Click here to see Video

It sounds like it is your TOB, especially considering the "feeling like Ihit a wall" and the fact that your engine seems fine.

My friends Prelude did something similar when his TOB fubared on him.

I'll either agree or disagree with what I just said after I see the vid.

-John

video added

Could be your TOB, or after hearing the video, maybe a spring popped out of your clutch disk.

Unfortunetly, you will probably not know for sure until you drop the tranny.

BUMP, hopefully someone can help you out more than me.

-John

Thanks for the input...I don't know much about clutches. If a spring popped wouldn't it be undriveable?

Most likely the TOB yes.
A spring could come out of the clutch disk I guess, but if its moving around in the bellhousing causing noise, that can't just go away when you push the clutch in. Its probable that if a spring came out of the disk, the whole disk would be grenading at that point and no longer drivable.

You can keep risking it running as long as you try, but once it starts making bad sound like that it needs to be done soon-enough.

i had a spring come out of my DXD.


drove for 5k after it happened without doing a damn thing. it would intermittantly jam the clutch on startup but never caused a problem when driving.

Does the sound change at all when you depress the clutch? If so then I would definitely say its your TOB. Mine makes a small sound, similar to what yours is making. I know it to be the TOB as it goes away when I depress the clutch. I count it as my lesson for not getting a new Mitsu TOB when I replaced the clutch, picked up some other manufacturers crap.

It totally goes away when I depress the clutch.

[quote=""My92Stealth""]the car hits a wall, like it hit fuel cut, but theres no way, [/quote]

I bet it was still fuel cut. I also bet you hit more than 15psi accelerating in 5th on a cool day which is why you hit fuel cut.

What did your O2s report?

[quote=""My92Stealth""]It totally goes away when I depress the clutch.[/quote]

Then the noise is your TOB. Only way to fix it is to drop the tranny. I dont plan on doing that for some time.

The hitting a wall feeling. Im with Mono it was probably fuel cut. Have you ever hit fuel cut before? The first time you do its the SCARIEST thing in the world. Thats the reason I decided to change from the max 17psi and go down to 14psi until I have some fuel mods.

Fuel cut to me was basically this... Accelerating at half throttle, cars pulling hard. BAM... might as well have hit a solid wall. Car basically slammed hard and everything shut down for a split second or so. My instant reaction was to lift my foot and hit the clutch. The car powered back on and everything and was normal again. All this happened in a matter of seconds. I didnt know at first but thankfully my turbo timer shows my last runs highest psi. I checked it and I had hit 1.34 bar. Thats a nice 19 psi, a little more than the stock system is meant to handle.

Basically I waited until about 3k rpms then got on it. It was a warm and muggy day and the turbos spooled up nicely, the boost controller was still using the stock lines and thus the turbo's spiked past the preset amount before the controller did its job. Thats all been fixed but when I get on the gas I still watch it with caution because it was SCARY.

My car sounds like that too, but not as loud. When i push the clutch in it completely goes a way. When the engine is warm it is also gone. Could this be the same problem?

Mono, no idea, I wasn't logging.
Evil, I suppose it could have been fuel cut since I did just plug up some boost leaks. Im on 550s with a walbro and the car is tuned for now. I've hit fuel cut twice before when I had 9bs and it was fucking crazy
Theo, probably is, mine used to be quieter until yesterday.

[quote=""Theo1""]My car sounds like that too, but not as loud. When i push the clutch in it completely goes a way. When the engine is warm it is also gone. Could this be the same problem?[/quote] 99% positive. If it goes away when you depress the clutch its your TOB. Sucks.

[quote=""My92Stealth""]Mono, no idea, I wasn't logging.
Evil, I suppose it could have been fuel cut since I did just plug up some boost leaks. Im on 550s with a walbro and the car is tuned for now. I've hit fuel cut twice before when I had 9bs and it was fucking crazy
Theo, probably is, mine used to be quieter until yesterday.[/quote]

Only one way to find out... datalog and do it again, or just trust it to be fuel cut. With it being so cold out (again like Mono said) and adding you just fixed some leaks I would say its a pretty safe bet.

Evil why the hell were you running 17psi on stock fuel.

I've never experienced fuel cut i guess I have an extreamly healthy fuel system cause I spike 15psi with no knock or fuel cut.

[quote=""EvilNCarnate""]99% positive. If it goes away when you depress the clutch its your TOB. Sucks.



Only one way to find out... datalog and do it again, or just trust it to be fuel cut. With it being so cold out (again like Mono said) and adding you just fixed some leaks I would say its a pretty safe bet.[/quote]



Damn, how much will this cost me?

If yours is just a little noise, I wouldnt worry. Plenty of these cars make the noise but as long as its not loud its ok to drive.But t be repaired the tranny needs to be dropped, so that'd be quite a bit.

[quote=""moffman93'""]Evil why the hell were you running 17psi on stock fuel.

I've never experienced fuel cut i guess I have an extreamly healthy fuel system cause I spike 15psi with no knock or fuel cut.[/quote] Well I knew that some cars were running 17psi and I knew a lot of it had to do with climate, elevation, humidity and heat. Since I live in a hot humid location I decided to see if I could run 17 psi. I started at 14 (1bar) and it was fine. Then I went to 15psi and still fine.... so then I set myself to around 17psi (1.17bar) so I set to 1.2 bar and ran with it. All was fine up to there but because I was still using the stock vac lines the distances to the turbos were not equal and I dont think the control was aggressive enough... so it spiked and I learned. So now I am back at 1 bar which leaves room for a spike and I actually never go over half throttle. After you gut the pre cats and give the car better intake it accelerates much better. Throw in a good boost controller, better plugs and wires, bigtyla ground kit, some new ecu caps... the car really pulls strong. I had another TT owner ask me what mods I had and he was shocked because of how hard mine pulls. Big thing with my car is it stays healthy, mods come second to maintenance... which is why im still BPU.

[quote=""Theo1""]Damn, how much will this cost me?[/quote] TOB is like 15 bucks or so, havent priced one recently but they are cheap. Personally next round I am going with a Mitsu one as it seems that they last longer without chatter. The stock one was fine and had about 20k on it that I knew of, based on the mileage on the paperwork for when the tranny and tcase were replaced , and it never made a sound all the way up to me having no clutch left. Yes I completely destroyed a stock clutch in 20k miles, it didnt take well to mods and aggressive driving.

Anyway the big cost is replacement, dropping the tranny, and putting the new one in. Seriously if you are going to drop the tranny you might as well do the whole shooting match (clutch, pressure plate, resurface flywheel, new bolts...) at least thats my motto on things. You can do it with a good friend in a weekend, a hard weekend. You have to tear everything out on the passengers side so you can disconnect the linkage, clutch slave, and top bolts. All the bottom shit, DP, cross member, starter, lower a arms dropped... to get the axles out of both sides +Tcase and front section of rear drive shaft if AWD. A few misc things and then you remove the bolts and seperate it from the engine, turn it sideways and lower it down.

Stealership will charge around 2k for the job more than likely. Not worth it. Really once you pull the tranny in one of these everything else is childs play. It doesnt take a lot of tools, couple wrenches, sockets, muscle, few cans of penetrating spray.... and time. Mine took me 1 day out. Started at 10am, finished about 6pm (first timer for the 3S). 6 days for machining of the flywheel and parts delivery. 1 day in, started at 10.... finished at 1am. Broke the bolts in the flywheel, they backed out by hand, took 2 hours to find replacements. Then I had my fiance helping me and she couldnt figure out why it wasnt going up in place (passenger shaft still tied up in the way) and my arms gave out and then I had to find someone to help me and he was a puss so I had to rig up a mechanical event to lift it while he steadied the cables and he didnt so it fell and knicked my paint and I got pissed.... so Moral of the Story... make sure if you do it you have someone reliable to help.

[quote=""My92Stealth""]If yours is just a little noise, I wouldnt worry. Plenty of these cars make the noise but as long as its not loud its ok to drive.But t be repaired the tranny needs to be dropped, so that'd be quite a bit.[/quote]
^ Agreed.

No good news to report. Quite the opposite in fact.
Took it to my family shop today (I worked this morning). I guess the sound going away when the clutch was in was just a coincidence. Did an oil change and checked the trans fluid level...chunk of something was sitting on the "bench" are behind the drain plug in the trans, and it was magnetic :[ Finished up everything and just drove home...worst drive of my life. Grinding and chunking that wouldn't go away when I depressed the clutch. It also has a hard time going into reverse, so I assume a fork or synchro or something fucked.
So i guess Ill be pulling the trans out...which is ok, I also found a torn axle boot so that'll have to be replaced...Gotta put in a new TOB and clutch anyways, and brake pads. Maybe thge SCU caps. Lifters as well, and VSS...maybe Ill get a hard intake pipe kit made up and throw that on. Maybe Ill do a 60k because I'm unsure of the cars exact mileage.
^Ive been editing that, to let me know what I need to fix

Ill try to get a pic of the chunk that came out up in a few...Also, if anyone is in the Southern NH region or there abouts, I'm sure Ill need some help dropping the trans in one of the next upcoming weekends, and Id be happy to reimburse you for your time.

Yea i still have my ecu kina out from when i wanted to install my turbo timer so should prob take off the cover and take some pics and post it up here to see if my caps are leaking cause i get a low rpm miss fire all the time now.

Also the big tyla ground kit, what exactly does it accomplish I've never looked into it.