As some of you may know, I was about to run the Texas Mile when my clutch started going out. The failure was seen under high load on the freeway in 6th. The clutch simply could not hold the torque and the motor would spin freely with no observed change in motion of the car.

My car has the AWE exhaust, GIAC programming including 100 octane race mode - the slippage was never seen in 93 octane mode, only when on 100 octane or "race" mode. My car has 8k miles and has never been "dragged" save for 3 GPS runs. I have perhaps 6-8 track days on the car also, never at anything beyond 7-8/10ths.

AWE kindly sent me out a Sachs Stage 2 racing clutch, which uses a stronger pressure plate and non-sprung clutch disc (factory clutch disc is sprung). The non-sprung disc is significantly lighter than the stock disc. My tech did the install in maybe 4 hours. Book charge is 11 hours labor (ouch).

The examination of my stock clutch was the surprising part - over 80% clutch life remaining as measured by micrometer. There was some light glazing on the disc, but overall a very good condition clutch. The flywheel likewise looked fine, only a few hotspots but nothing notable. In conclusion, the tech and I surmised that the stock clutch simply could not generate enough clamping force for the peak torque of the GIAC "RACE" programming. The only situation where you might be able to generate this long sustained peak torque and opposing load is under full throttle in 6th. In the lower gears the car rips through the rpms too fast to generate enough load/boost.