My 944 Turbo has a problem with clutch disengagement. About three thousand miles ago, I had a high performance clutch and flywheel set up installed and it was working fine. Gradually I noticed it harder and harder to shift and finally I could only start the car in gear if I wanted to drive it. And it grinds when I try to engage reverse. Prior to the total failure of it, I was having a tough time getting the car into second gear on both the up shift and the down shift. Even when it was working fine, second gear did not feel healthy. I tried to adjust the clutch master cylinder free play and when I look at the clutch fork through the inspection hole, it appears to be moving as far as it should. My fear is that I have damaged the transmission and that I will have to have the clutch replaced again. I provided the clutch parts and the work was done three years ago so I know this is going to hurt. Jerry
A – I am sorry to tell you this but you are correct. Turbo clutches are a bugger to install with all the extra parts involved not to mention your 4 inch exhaust. Even worse, the high performance clutch supplier won’t warranty the parts based on the time they have been installed in the car. To add insult to injury, the odds are pretty good that your transmission synchronizer in second gear is toast.
The most recent failure that I have seen involved a failure of the clutch release fork. A heavy duty clutch puts greater load on an area of the fork where it seems that the casting was just a little too thin. When I compared the damaged fork to another newer part the broken area was reinforced. These parts are now considered obsolete by Porsche so your only option is finding a good used one. The other possibility is that one or more of the pressure plate fingers has broken or warped. The only way to know is to get it all apart and call it as you see it. Just getting at it is the truly painful part.
As far as the transmission grind into second, the rated time to rebuild a 944 Turbo trans is about 15 hours plus the parts involved so if the clutch issue wasn’t enough, it is only wise to have the transmission serviced at the same time to take advantage of the fact that it has to be removed to do the clutch a second time. Once you get it sorted out, I would love to test drive it. I bet it is a beast. MC