New clutch installed and bad wheel hop?
What are you saying here? That the Borg and Beck SHOULD release close to the top? I ask because that's what I have in the Valiant, since that's what it came with. It releases pretty close to the top and it's always felt fine.
The lever ratios on all the different covers are different. I used to know the difference between the B&B lever ratio and the Long cover.
The Long cover has a quicker lever ratio than the B&B does. The quicker the lever ratio is compared to what the OE used then the more the clutch pedal acts like a toggle switch. The OE pedal ratios are designed with the lever ratio of the cover in mind.
Speeding up the lever ratio changes everything from the cover up to the pedal. I’ve never liked a toggle switch clutch and I got burned by that once.
I was racing a clutch car against all the automatic guys. I wasn’t even using a 2 step so I was at a decided disadvantage. Over the winter I measured everything, did all the math and rebuilt the entire clutch and throttle linkage.
The idea was to shorten up the clutch pedal and throttle throw. And with that, cut my reaction times down to be more competitive. Luckily, I made both the clutch and throttle adjustable.
The idea worked like a champ sitting in the shop. At the track...well...that was a nightmare. I never considered what a beeeeeeeeeeeeeeotch it was going to be just driving through the pits or even doing a simple burnout. With two flying toilets on a tunnel ram it was near impossible just getting to the staging lanes.
It took 1.75 inches to make the clutch go from the pedal stop to the top. The throttle was 1.200 from closed to WOT. So everything was super quick.
With the flying toilets it took about .100 butterfly opening to get 7500 RPM with no load. So I’m feeling real smart as I head to the staging lanes.
My dad said it looked like I was riding a bucking bronco. The clutch was either in or out. And the throttle didn’t have a sweet spot. The engine was either idling or blowing through the pits like my hair was on fire. Got my *** chewed by the track owner for driving reckless through the pits and pissed off a bunch of people who thought I was acting the idiot.
Then I couldn’t even do a burnout. Once the tires spun, the engine was either bogging down or running up to 8500. It was a complete disaster. So I aborted that first pass and went back and slowed everything down to where I could drive the thing.
So...I learned that what sounds good in my head and looks great on paper isn’t always good. Mostly it’s NOT good. I still run a Borg & Beck cover with Long fingers. So I have to change the pedal ratio so it’s drivable. And, when Cale at Black Magic clutched did the update on my junk he used levers that he designed. And they are a bit quicker than an OE Long lever so I had to modify the clutch linkage again.
There is a lot more to changing form a B&B cover to anything else if you want to keep the drivability like OE stuff. I had to learn it the hard way. I hate fighting the car just to get it to move. Or things like pulling into a bank parking lot with a locker and screwed up pedal ratios. That ain’t fun.
