Bounce

I bet a bunch of you can help me with this problem, and I need to start somewhere...so here goes

About a week ago....my car started acting up when i tried to accelerate...the rpms would spike up, but the car wouldn't catch right away....

long story short - it has gotten terminally worse today....I am trying to get it going into first gear....and RPMs are hitting 4-5K before I can get any pull (on a up-hill)

I was on the highway, and shifting from 3-4 or 4-5 gears.....the car is spiking almost to 7K-8K RPMs before the car even catches.....

I tried to call Acura Dealers...obviously being sunday no one is open....

I appreciate any info you guys can give me.....ask any questions you may have....

If it matters, I have a 2005 6MT TL

gth181a

Clutch is slipping

1fsthatch

yup....ouch thats expensive...

Bounce

more details please? what does that mean "clutch is slipping"

and how expensive?

is this common, I never had this problem before....is there a recall on this or something, car only has 71000 miles

Maddizm

iTrader: (5)

"clutch is slipping" I'm pretty sure means... get a new clutch.

Bounce

True, I figured it mght be the clutch.....I can smell something burning after I try to put it in gear and go a little bit....so it has to be the clutch.

Has anyone ever swapped out a clutch before....can you guys reccomend anyone either inside or outside of a acura service dealership either in NY or CT?

Anyone have a ballpark estimate of what this costs?

Thanks for the help!

SouthernBoy

Not being a smart a--, but do you know how a clutch works? If not, here is a very quick and high-level description.

There are three major components of a clutch assembly: the flywheel, the pressure plate, and the clutch disk (also called the friction disk). The flywheel is attached to the crankshaft and the pressure plate is bolted to the flywheel so these parts all spin together. The clutch disk is attached to the transmission input shaft and is "driven" the flywheel and pressure plate squeezing the clutch disk under pressure - think of a sandwich.

When the clutch slips, these components are not locking up under full engagement. This is usually caused by wear, but can also be caused by other forces such as improper "pedal" adjustment (not a factor with the TL).

So what this boils down to it most likely one of two things. Either you have excessive wear and slipping has set in or there is something wrong with the control components which allow the operator to engage and disengage the clutch. The primary component here is the hydraulic system and there have been reported problems with this.

Based upon your description of very high RPMs being allowed to exist while slipping was taking place, you most likely will need a new clutch assembly since you have have scored the contact surfaces. Get your car in right away to have this taken care of.

Bounce

^^

Thanks bro...that was a good description. I am not too familiar with the "jargon", so I apologize...I am reading up on the details to figure this all out.

I will assume that I should not drive the car anymore....until I can get it to a dealer. I might just get a towed, but there is no one really open today. Do you guys reccomend showing it to a dealer, or are they just going to rip me off?

Does anyone have an estimate on what I am looking at for a repair estimate if the clutch assembly does need to be replaced.

Again, car has about 71000 miles...and I have no problems with the car, other than a ECV valve which was replaced 1.5 years ago.

golfjwr

Sounds like a clear and cut case of needing to get a new clutch. That is the exact problem I had when my clutch went in my Mustang back in the day. As far as cost, I have have an AT so I couldn't give a price for the repair. I 'll say this when I had to replace it in my stang it was $600 and that was a POS Ford, now we're talking about a Japanese sport luxury sedan. If I had to guess you are looking at $900+/-

TL|GTX

How do clutches get messed up not familiar with M/T, stuff. If u hold it down to long, and dont shift?

golfjwr

It's really just like any other part in the car wear and tear eventually will wear it down. Depressing the clutch and having the throw out bearing going in and out over and over again will just wear it down. Think about how many thousands of times MT are shifted in the course of you owning your car. Also, it doesn't help if you have never driven a MT before, the car that you learn on (unless you pick it up real quickly), you can pretty much take about 10% of the life out of the clutch just from the learning process. It's not because the person driving is an idiot, just part of the learning curve that comes with driving a manual.

grsd03

whoa 2005 and clutch is toast already, kinda makes me worry about how fast mine will last.

1fsthatch

he has 71k on it thats pretty good

Bounce

I don't know....I would not assume that they only last 71K miles....I would at the very least expect 100K out of an Acura....

I don't really ride my clutch like some people do...I haven't been trying to use the car to race or anything like that...most of the equipment on my car is stock since I have had it. yes I wanted a sporty car, but I didn't start throwing in air filters and replacing the headers and exhaust, yada yada -- that is not what I was going for...

i won't lie...sometimes on a hill i do feather the clutch instead of holding the brake down - not always, but i have done it in the past....waiting for my turn at a stop sign or whatever....

eitherway, i still think 71K is a bit soon to blow through a clutch, especially given that it is going to cost me almost an arm or a leg to replace it....

again if anyone has done this before, feel free to chime in...i'd appreciate it.

SouthernBoy

There are three major reasons for premature clutch wear and one unpredictable one. In no particular order, they are: 1) Poor design. The clutch assembly was not designed properly for the engine/car combination. 2) improper installation. There were errors made during the installation process. 3) Operator error. And the fourth unpredictable item is sudden and unexpected failure.

Items 1 and 2 almost never occur since the design and manufacturing processes are pretty much routine. And the fourth item is something that can happen to anyone for a variety of reasons or no obvious reason at all. That leaves item number 2; operator error.

Without a doubt, by far and away, driver error is the primary cause of premature clutch wear/failure. Barring racing, towing, or living in a city such as San Francisco, the driver is biggest enemy of a clutch. Assuming none of these conditions are present and the operator knows, really knows, how to properly operate a manual transmission, the clutch should last over 200,000 miles. So 71,000 miles is nothing in the life of a clutch.



Here is something I wrote a number of years ago on another car forum. Hope it helps and raises some questions. I tried to search more recent discussions about some of these topics about which I have addressed on this site but to no avail.


====================================


PROPER MANUAL TRANSMISSION DRIVING TECHNIQUES

What follows is a collection of writings which I have posted at various times on this website in an effort to help answer some questions regarding the proper manner in which a manual transmission should be operated. While there are certainly many ways to drive a car with a manual transmission, there is really only one correct way. I was most fortunate to have learned these techniques while I was still in my teenage years. In so doing, I was able to avoid developing entrenched habits before they became really bad habits and difficult to correct. It is my hope that this helps you learn what I have learned and perfected over the years. If you do, you will reap the rewards, both financial and in the knowledge that you have mastered a technique that few do in their lifetimes. Have fun!

Under normal driving situations (not racing), when you start out from a standing start, you do so with the lowest possible RPMs, get the clutch out to full engagement as soon as you can while adding throttle. If you do this correctly, the transition will be smooth and seamless, and the wear on your clutch disk, pressure plate, release bearing, and flywheel will be minimized.

If properly designed (sufficient size and clamping pressure, etc.), and properly installed with no defects (correct torque, non-faulty equipment, alignment, etc.), then the next, and most important, factor to the life of the clutch assembly is the operator.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY A CLUTCH CANNOT LAST THE LIFE OF THE ENGINE UNDER NORMAL DRIVING CONDITIONS.

When I speak of engine life here, I am referring to life before a serious teardown or part replacement such as a timing chain (200,000+ miles) or headwork. If you cannot get at least 100,000 miles out of a clutch, you are doing something terribly wrong. Obviously, racing and other extreme conditions such as towing constitute a whole different approach and, as such, do not come under this.


Don'ts:

Do not use any more engine speed (RPMs) than absolutely necessary to get the car rolling in first gear.

Do not hold the car on a hill with the clutch.

Do not wait for a traffic light to turn green with the transmission in gear and the clutch depressed.

Do not rest your foot on the clutch while driving.


Do not ride the clutch in any gear (obviously you will to a small degree in first to start off).

Do not down shift by just removing your foot from the gas, moving the shifter into a lower gear, then releasing the clutch slowly.


Do's

Start off smoothly and with low engine speed, and shift in such a manner that if you had a passenger on board, they would not even notice the shifts.

Hold the car on hills with the brakes.. that's what brakes are for. NEVER hold a car on a hill with the clutch. The amount of heat generated by doing this is incredible.

While waiting for a light to change or while sitting in heavy traffic, put the transmission in neutral and get your foot completely off of the clutch petal. Leaving it in gear for extended periods heats up and shortens the life of the release bearing. The normal condition of a clutch is fully engaged so it stands to reason that's where it should be most of the time.

Resting your foot on the clutch petal while driving engages the release bearing.. see above.

Avoid riding the clutch as much as is humanly possible. You will extend its life significantly.

If you do not know how to properly downshift, DON’T. Use the brakes (should do this anyway), and avoid downshifting any more than necessary. Improper downshifting is analogous to riding the clutch because that is what you are actually doing. Learn how to properly downshift first and save yourself the frustration of premature clutch failure.

Clutches are wear items, heavily affected by heat caused by friction. In a front wheel drive car, they are costly to replace, so unless you like shelling out a lot of money periodically for the replacement of these components, learn the correct way. Learn it until it becomes second nature like breathing.



I spent some time teaching a lady with whom I worked 10 years ago these techniques when she purchased a new '92 Honda Accord LX. When I last spoke with her, she had well over 140,000 miles on the original clutch with no signs of slippage. So I'm not jerking anyone's chain here. Learn to operate a manual transmission correctly and you will reap the rewards by saving a lot of money. Plus you will be one of the few who know how to do this right.

I don't mean to set myself up here as some kind of guru because I am not. But I have been driving vehicles with manual transmissions for over 40 years. I have spent the time to perfect the process into an art form because when done correctly, that’s what it is. When I sold my '88 Mustang LX 302CID, it was 6 years old and had 77,000 miles on it. When the buyer drove it, he asked me when I replaced the clutch because to him, it felt very positive. I told him that I had never replaced it and that it was the original unit. I added that it wouldn't make any sense to replace a clutch after only 77,000 miles since that is not very much wear. He had a little bit of a hard time believing this, but he did buy the car. Three months later, he called me up to let me know how much he liked the car and to tell me had had not wrapped it around a tree. He again asked about the clutch and I again told him that it was the original clutch.

I used to own a 1966 Chevelle SS396/360HP. I was the original owner of the car. For a period of about 2 years, I was street racing the car frequently on the weekends. At 83,000 miles when I sold it, it would still break traction in all four gears and the clutch had no slippage. It was tight and strong. Now granted, American cars have traditionally had stronger clutches than Japanese cars. This is changing because the Japanese are putting larger and stronger (torque) engines in their cars.



Downshifting

Ah yes, downshifting. If I had to name just one facet of manual transmission errors-of-operation, this would probably be it.

To understand how to operate a manual transmission, you have to know how the clutch assembly and transmission work, and I am going to take the assumption that most do on this forum. I will only clarify synchronizers. They serve to match the speed of the gears in the transmission as the shifter is moved to a given gear. Now for downshifting.

Let's say you are in fourth gear and you are approaching a stop sign, so you decide to downshift from fourth gear into third. What most people do is just remove their foot from the throttle, depress the clutch while moving the shifter from fourth to third, then start releasing the clutch slowly until they achieve full engagement. If you do this, what you are actually doing is riding the clutch in third gear. After all, the engine has returned to idle (or close to it), you get into third, then just ease the clutch out which pulls the engine from idle up to the RPM's at which it will operate at whatever speed you are traveling in third gear. Here is the correct way to do this in steps that I will break down in a moment.

Raise your foot off of the throttle.

Depress the clutch.

Start the shifter up into third.

As you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out a bit (doesn't have to be all the way) while at the same time blipping the throttle to increase engine speed BEYOND that which it will operate in the chosen lower gear.

Depress the clutch again.

Engage the chosen lower gear.

Let the clutch out while adding throttle.

As the engine RPM's decrease they will be met by the engaging clutch and opening throttle.

This should be a simple, smooth, fluid motion and you will know you've done it right if there is no jerking as the clutch comes out in the last step. Now for some details.

As you move into the neutral gate with your foot off of the throttle, the engine RPM's will be returning to idle. This is the point at which you want to blip the throttle a bit while at the same time engaging the clutch some. You want to get the engine turning faster than it will when you are in the lower gear you have chosen. The reason is that you want to spin the gears up to a speed that equals that at which they will be operating when you finally release the clutch in your downshift. If you do this right, there is no clutch slippage because the engine and the gears in the transmission will be spinning at the same or nearly the same RPM's. No slippage means you will get into gear with full engagement of the clutch sooner and with virtually no wear. To best understand this, you really need to know how a clutch assembly and transmission work together to deliver power from the engine to the drive wheels.

This takes a lot of practice, but if you get it down, you will be heads and shoulders above just about anyone else who drives a car with a manual transmission. You will begin to notice the mistakes other are making when they drive. Learn from their mistakes and it will both save you money and make you a far better driver.

So it's in with the clutch, start the shifter into the chosen lower gear, while passing through the neutral gate, blip the throttle and at the same time engage the clutch a bit to spin up the gears, then back in with the clutch as you get into the chosen gear, then finally release the clutch in one smooth operation.

Here's another little tip. Say you are waiting at a light for the green and your transmission is in neutral like it should be with your foot completely off of the clutch petal. When the light turns green, instead of just depressing the clutch and pushing the shifter up into first, pull the shifter partially into a higher gear first, such as second or third. The gears in those selections are not spinning as fast as the gears in first. By starting the shifter into a higher gear before you go to into first gear, you will cause less wear on the synchronizers and they will last far longer because they do not have to stop gears which are spinning at a higher speed. For cars which do not have synchronized reverse, definitely do this and you will not experience the grinding affect when shifting into reverse.

Say you are driving normally, shifting up through the gears to the one in which you wish to be for cruising. As you disengage the clutch and move the shifter to the next higher gear, you might notice a slight resistance just before you finish the shift. What you feel is the synchronizer for that gear forcing the drive gear(s) from the input shaft and the gears selected to "mesh". That is to say, their speeds are forced to equalize so that as they engage, there is no grinding and no damage to the gear teeth. That said, we can move to double clutching.

Double clutching was a technique that came about when earlier manual transmissions did not have synchronizers. If you did not double clutch, you would experience some serious gear grinding when shifting.

If you did not have synchronizers in your transmission, you would have had two choices when shifting gears: (1) put up with some really serious grinding and damage/breakage to gear teeth, or (2) manually match the speed of the gears in each selected shift so that you would eliminate the problems just mentioned in #1.

Suppose you are traveling in second gear, the engine is turning at 2500 RPM, and you are getting ready to shift to third. At the road speed you are going, let's say that once in third, your engine would be turning at 1800 RPM. When you remove your foot from the gas, the engine is going to loose RPMs quickly and by the time you get into third, the engine might only be turning 1200 RPM. Without synchronizers, you would need to raise the engine back up to 1800 RPM in order for the gears to mesh. By blipping the throttle and at the same time letting the clutch out some when you are passing through the neutral gate, you will both increase engine RPM and increase gear speed. As the engine RPMs fall back off, they will reach a point at which you will be able to complete the shift.

Since for years, manual transmissions have been fully synchronized, there is no need whatsoever to double clutch when upshifting and I definitely recommend against this practice.

Now downshifting is much like this, only in reverse. In other words, you are going from a higher gear to a lower gear so if your engine was turning at 2500 RPM and you wanted to shift to second, You would want to blip the throttle enough to raise engine speed to perhaps around 3200 - 3500 RPM.

When you are upshifting, the RPMs fall off and most people find it pretty easy to adjust to this and to add throttle at the right time so that when the clutch comes back out, they have the proper RPM's for the gear selection/road speed.

However, most people downshift by (1) removing their foot from the throttle, (2) moving the shifter into the next lower (or chosen) gear, then (3) slowly releasing the clutch while adding little or no throttle. This is NOT the proper manner in which to downshift. What you are doing in effect, is riding the clutch in reverse. In other words, you probably wouldn't dare attempt to start your car off in third gear because you would have to add a lot of throttle and really slip the clutch to get the car moving. When you downshift like the example I just gave, you are doing something similar to starting off in a higher gear, though it does take more energy to get a car moving from a dead start. Now if you double clutch during the downshift, you are spinning up the gears and the transition to the next gear will be quite smooth.


Junkyard asked a question about the concept of “passing through the neutral gate”. You don’t stop or stay in neutral. You are just passing through, so to speak. In your second question, you said I had mentioned to put the car in neutral when downshifting. Not exactly. Try this with the engine off.

Put the car in fourth. Depress the clutch and shift to third and let the clutch out. Now do the same thing, only this time as you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out some or a good deal and blip the throttle, then clutch back in, get into third, clutch comes out for the final time. That is the movement you want.

Incidentally, blipping the throttle is just a little stab at the petal, enough to raise RPMs to the desired level. You do not want to be on the throttle long because you will be in the process of shifting. Yes, this does take a lot of practice and may not come easily for many, but it is the best way, in fact the only proper way, to downshift because it very significantly reduces clutch and synchronizer wear (especially clutch), and once you get the hang of it, you will be able to do it quite fast.

The bottom line to all of this folks is to match engine speed to wheel speed in a given gear, and to do it in such a manner as to eliminate undue trauma to your drive train. I do this all of the time and have been downshifting like this since my late teens. I actually learned it from a magazine article (as I can best recall). If you know how a manual transmission and clutch assembly operate, all of the components and how they perform together, you will understand the beauty of the process.

Oh the grinding noise Junkyard hears when he starts letting up the clutch too quickly is most likely due to not having fully engaged the gear teeth and they separate (pop out of gear). That or he actually begins engaging the gear teeth before the clutch is fully depress so there is still some flywheel/disk/pressure plate contact.


One of the things I noticed right off the bat on my SE was that the clutch began to engage much too close to the floor for me (a contributor to the problem Junkyard has had). It was starting to engage about 1 inch from the floor, so I adjusted it out to 2 inches and it is fine. If you do this, just make sure you have the required toeplay, otherwise you will prematurely wear out your release bearing.

The purpose of letting the clutch out some as you pass through the neutral gate is to spin the gears up in preparation for the speed at which they must be at for the lower gear selection. This will allow you to get into that gear very easily. When you depress the clutch, you disengage the crankshaft from the transmission. The gears in the transmission will begin to slow down. By letting out the clutch some (or completely) in the neutral gate, you once again, MOMENTARILY, engage the full drive train and get the gears spinning. Only this time since you have blipped the throttle, they'll be spinning faster. As they slow down from the higher speed, your clutch will be coming out for the final time with the transmission in gear and the mesh will be smooth.

Try it both ways. Do it first the way you do it and notice that you have to add a little bit of force to get the shifter into gear. That's because the synchronizers are doing their job of gear speed meshing. Now try it the way I outlined and if you do it right, you will have virtually no resistance as you slip the shifter into your chosen gear.

Instead of going right into first as the light starts to go green, try starting the shifter into second gear.. don't have to go all the way into gear, though it won't hurt. This slows the gears down just as though you had gone on into first, but it's much easier on the synchronizers. And you won't get the "crunch" you mentioned when you have to move quickly.


To prevent rollback; practice, practice, practice, practice.

One way to do this is to find a nice little hill someplace where you won't be a bother to anyone. Take along some masking tape and mark off two sections with the tape a foot apart. Your goal is to keep the car from coasting back more than 1 foot.. of course you do not use the clutch to hold the car.. use the brakes. As you learn to do this, find another hill a little steeper. And so on, and so on.

SouthernBoy

Don't ever do this. Very bad habit and very bad for your clutch. I regularly see people do this and right away it tells me they don't have a clue how to operate a manual transmission.

Oh, BTW, you can't install headers on our engines because they do not have exhaust manifolds.

mista.huynh

iTrader: (4)

Good info!

I noticed my clutch is starting to slip too =(

Bounce

Good reply....yea, like I said I have no idea with the headers...have little to no clue in regard to the intricacies....when I was much younger I modded my old honda accord coupe with all sorts of accouterments....now i day i keep it rather stock

Your writeup on proper manual driving and shifting was very good...i really like this car and i plan to keep it for a while, so i am going to see what my best options are to get this replacement and get back on the road....

then i will put your tips to use :-)

SouthernBoy

Oh, from what I have read on these forums, expect a full clutch replacement to run somewhere around $1600 at a dealer. Less if you find a good, reputable shop to do the work.

TimTim

iTrader: (4)

That sucks, cause I know my clutch will be on it's way in the next 6 months or so, 80k miles on my TL, and I can just feel it cause it catches higher than normal.

SouthernBoy

Our clutches are self-adjusting so the initial engagement point should remain relatively constant. Have your hydraulic control system checked out because 80,000 miles is pretty soon for a clutch to go out. My '04 has 65,400 and the clutch is tight and positive on engagement and shifts. Unless something out of the ordinary occurs (knock on wood), I would expect to get well over 200,000 miles out of my clutch.

phee

iTrader: (5)

clutch is 213 online (OEM) buy it online and take it to a local shop. shouldnt be more than 450-500 dollars in the end

TimTim

iTrader: (4)

WOW? 200k for a lifetime on a clutch? Thats amazing! Keep us posted!

MugenDream

There is a 2000 prelude in my garage with 172k.
Clutch is still miles stiffer than it used to be, but still bites very nice!

BLACKURA_NY

iTrader: (6)

the only thing that makes me happy to own a 5AT... good luck man

phee

iTrader: (5)

those numbers in your sig would be higher with a 6mt

SouthernBoy

Most I've heard for a regularly driven Acura, and we're talking work commuting as well here, was 315,000 miles when the writer wrote the article. His car was an early 90's Integra and he lived in either Detroit or Chicago (not sure which city). His commute was 120 miles a day as I recall. He wrote a column for a paper and he practiced the same techniques I have written about so much on this website. At the time he wrote the article, he still have life left in his over-300K mile clutch.

I've also heard of some members on this site who have gotten close to 300,000 miles on a clutch. So it is certainly not impossible at all. Of course the clutch in our TL's is no match for the one that was in my 1966 SS396/360 Chevelle, nor was it even close to the one in my 2000 SVT Contour. But those were American cars with strong clutches made to last (the SVT Contour was over-engineered in a number of areas besides the clutch). The Chevelle, with "normal" driving, would have no problem seeing the other side of 300,000 miles. I street raced that car quite a bit and while I never power shifted (always speed shifted), it would still break traction in all four gears.

I suspect the TL clutch is a good one and barring problems with the peripheral components (hydraulics, the control valve, etc), it should last a very long time.

SouthernBoy

Good for you. You're obviously doing some things right.

I hate cars

The short version, slip=wear. Anytime you take off and the clutch isn't fully engaged you're wearing it.

In my old car I would idle it off the line and once the clutch was fully engaged I would give it throttle. First was real short so it only took a second to full engagement and it didn't hold anyone up. I got a hair over 200,000 miles out of it until the trans went.

People who slip the clutch in second gear going through parking lots because they don't want to downshift to first annoy me.

I hate cars

Yes, your "Japanese sport luxury sedan" is so much better than a POS Ford lol. JDM FTW.

SouthernBoy

Interesting. Three of the most reliable cars I've ever owned have been Fords. I can only up my '05 and '05 TL's measure up to them in those regards.

I hate cars

There was lots of sarcasm in that post. It came down to my TL or an 03-04 Cobra. I passed on the Cobra because I knew I would mod it and I'm done with modding my daily drivers.

Bounce

Car is in the shop right now...with an Acura dealer....Originally I was quoted around $1600 to replace it....upon them taking a look, they said the flywheel might be bad, in which case that would add another $600 to be replaced...I am not sure about all that -- right now they are still in the process of dropping the transmission, so I don't know exactly what is going on....I am waiting for a call back.

Hopefully my flywheel is good and I am not out another $600....as it is the $1600 is bad enough, yikes!

05BlkTL

Ouch man! I would have passed on the dealer doing it, but if that's who you felt comfy with doing it then I understand ya. Hopefully you can get 200K outta the new one applying southerboys tips

SouthernBoy

Oops, my bad.. your good.

Bounce

I hear you man....I was contemplating finding someone else to do it....ran into a series of problems though....

the car is my daily driver, so i needed it....i'm driving quite a bit for work right now, that and it more or less stopped working while i was more than 100 miles from home...so getting it towed wasn't making much sense financially....

I would have liked to take the opportunity to research some performance parts to quite possibly increase the life of the new clutch....but now that it is said and done I will hope the factory stuff holds up strong...

Xiomaro

iTrader: (5)

LOL, my 07 Type S has 25k and Clutch is MORE than toast

mista.huynh

iTrader: (4)

Joke or serious?

SouthernBoy

Son, what have you been doing to that poor car?

ATXtsx05

I have an 05 6mt tsx with 62,000 miles and my clutch went out two weeks ago. I go to school about 3 hours from home so ive been staring at my clutchless saloon for a full 17 days now. My buddy has a 05 tl 6mt with about 58,000 on it and his clutch is stating to show signs of failure. I looked at CM ad didn't like what they had. And I wanted to go with a more jap part because they know the car better than us americans do. So, Exedy is my choice. I ordered my stage 1 org clutch kit (yeah OE is organic also but doesnt have a nearly as high heat resistance so this should last longer and grab a little stiffer). that was about $250, then I ordered my lightweight flywheel by Exedy, which is almost 13 lbs lighter than the OE flywheel. That was about $200. Then while i was at it why not save me some time in the future and do the slave cylinder anyway. it would have probably gone out breaking in the new clutch anyway but that was only like $50. so im at $500 with out install labor prices but I have a really friendly mech that hooks me up as long as i help him do the work. So while your paying almost 2 grand i will be right around $760 and a better part. btw, Exedy = Daikin, Im pretty sure Daikin makes the OE clutchs for all honda and acuras straight from the factory. So I believe Exedy has they're Sh*T straight. Just my 2 cents on clutch kits for acuras.

On the other note, I live 3 hours from home meaning 3 hours from my mech and the part. I need to get my car there. towing is two expensive and I dont trust tow dolly's from uhaul. Who makes the right tow bar for the tsx, that attaches to the two tow brackets on the under carriage right behind the front bumper?

https://acurazine.com/forums/1g-tsx-performance-parts-modifications-126/exedy-stage-1-organic-w-lightweight-flywheel-hf02t-706496/