Three JD Sachs in the tank...

[Todd T]

we saw alot of action this weekend at Muncie but for some it wasnt pretty.



Steve St. Laurent only went about 10feet because his Sachs clutch wouldnt hold. and one other guy made it about twice that distance. and a third blew all to He!! and went home on the trailer. it was very disheartning to see three of J D's clutch's fail to hold.



wonder what went wrong, the track appeared to be pretty loose and very dry.

 

[Rattlebox]

oohh, looks like I better upgrade the factory clutch before pulling a sled, eh ?

 

[DAWG-1]

Hi Todd,

That doesn't sound like they were to happy. So which clutch setup held and what HP did they have? Sam

 

[Todd T]

cant answer that Sam. from what we could tell the auto's had the advantage that night. (no, i take that back, the mosquitoes did )



the track was so loose they were able to upshift and get the tire speed needed to get down the track and then downshift again at the end.



there was one guy, that managed to upshift with a stick.



he did it twice, and each time the crowd went wild.



it was very impressive, i think it was an all white QC 2500, but I didnt get his name.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I just got back into town from the event - MAN am I tired! I wouldn't judge the clutch by my run - I've never pulled a sled before in my life so I was winging it. Everyone that I had to give me advice was running 3. 55 gears and I was running 4. 10's so I wasn't even sure what gear to run in. When I hooked to the sled the clutch slipped big time (as did Gene's), but I shut it down pretty fast (about 5 seconds). They backed it up and let me try again (Gene only tried once), the second time it did nothing but hook, I tried leaving the line at 1800 rpm and it bogged it down to 700 rpm. If I had more experience (hindsight being 20/20) I would have put the clutch back in and tried to slip it to get back up on the turbo, I was under it. I was afraid of getting rammed from behind by the sled so I didn't. This being the first pull I've ever done there was SOOOOOOO much to think about it was difficult to say the least (it really scared me when guys that have pulled before were worried about the track surface) - not to mention being in front of a HUGE crowd doing it!! All I know is that on my second pull (I used 1800 rpm both times, first time in 2nd 4-high, then in 3rd 4-low) the clutch HOOKED hard. My carrier bearing also went out on friday so my driveshaft was knocking hard which worried me. I'm planning on trying another pull at the Scheid event in August and will adjust my technique given what I learned. This time before I get up to the sled I'll clamp down my brakes HARD and slip the clutch under power for a second or two to heat it up before hooking to the sled - maybe it will work, maybe it won't. I have a LOT to learn about pulling sleds! On Sunday we went to the dragstrip and the clutch held no problem as it did dragging the trailer home this morning - no slip ever including burnouts - in otherwords I'm still happy with it, especially after that abuse). I think it will hold up to the sled as long as there's some heat in it given that it simply bogged the engine down, but the jury is still out. I should have been MUCH higher on the rev's on the 2nd pull once it was heated up and would have done better.



One of the competitors fused his dual disk McLeod to his flywheel as I understand it - the track was VERY tricky that day - probably not a great day to make my first pull! IMO, it was rookie mistakes that killed me and I learned from it and will improve in the future. I don't plan on pulling often but would like to get to where I have at least one good pull on video!

 

[Sled Puller]

Second Pull on DRE Sachs clutch.

AMSOIL ruined my pull.



500 extra pounds(cases of oil) in the bed that I never pulled with before, I lowered my air pressure for the first time, then got all excited and honked on`er out of the hole.

Joe never advertised this as a pulling clutch, but I thought it would hold better than it did.



I was first puller, so I had the option of coming back and pulling again, but I was chicken.

It may have stuck then. It may have grenaded. I should have tried it, after all, Lorretta Mitchell would have towed me to her shop, I'm sure.



The only clutch that will hold up to high HP and truck pulling and still be sort of streetable is Mitchell's. You do make sacrifices though.

The McClods get chewed up pretty fast.

I'm going to try again at the Buck, keep my tires up, no weight, and try to get it hot before I pull.

BTW, I made 84 feet at 3500 RPM, so the clutch took some abuse.

 

[Todd T]

that makes four then,

the other one i was refering to was a dark blue or black truck. he only made it about 60 feet. before they shut him down. the amsoil truck was red.



so what kind of HP and Torque do these trucks have? I am looking for 500HP out of mine and need a clutch that can hold it.

right now im at 310/675 but I have a set of injectors to put in that should put me around 400hp.