McLeod Flywheel Aluminum 8-Bolt 164-Tooth 4.6L/5.0L/5.4L 1996-2017

Last time out with our project Krimpstang, we test fit our engine, got it in the car, found a couple issues with the fitment that we had to take care of, so we pulled the engine back out of the car. Before we put it back in, we're going to make our lives easier by installing the clutch, the flywheel, and the blow-proof bell-housing.

We're going to be installing the McLeod Street Extreme Clutch kit, along with the McLeod matching aluminum flywheel. We're going to put a QuickTime bell-housing over everything to keep it safe. In case you missed it the introduction, the goal of Krimpstang factory stock class. Now, to run in something like that with a sanctioned body, you have to have certain safety items in the car. One of them is going to be SFI approval on the bell-housing. In our case, the bellhousing, clutch, and flywheel are all SFI certified, and this is the latest certification, which is legal for NMRA factory stock.

This is a single disk clutch with a dual sided ceramic disk that will hold up to 650 foot pound which will be plenty for the kiting I'm putting in there. The kits going to include the pressure plate, the disks itself, along with a throw up baring and an alignment tool. For the flywheel, I also went with McLeod with their aluminum flywheel. There's an argument back and forth between the aluminum and steel flywheels. In my opinion, for my application, I want it to be aluminum because the less rotating mass and I kind of like the hit of an aluminum flywheel versus a steel flywheel especially with the radial tires designed for the class. A blue proof bell-housing like this quick time unit here is an excellent choice for your street car and is a must have for your race car. Most sanctioned bodies are going to require it. The basis of this is a steel Bell-housing that will protect your feet in case of a clutch explosion. With high RPM launches, it's definitely something I'm going to want to have in the car. This quick time bell is going to work with my TKL and will bolt up to any modular engine and again, it's SFI 6.1 which is the latest SFI approval.

We'll start by installing the backing plate provided with the quick time bell-housings. I'm going to go on one way. The starter index is down here. This is going to go where the position censor is right there and will go right on the factory dells. You'll be able to see all of the factory openings for the bell- housing bolts. Now we're going to grab the dhows that are included in our Ford Performance clutch bolt kit. We're going to put those on our flywheel to help line up our clutch. We're going to line up the flywheel. Be careful when you line it up. Give it a good look because it's only going to fit on one way. We're going to use these ARP bolts to pull our flywheel on to our engine. They supply this lubricant. Put a little on each one of the bolts before you put them in. Now as you tighten them, you want to make sure you tighten them evenly, just work your way around, I kind of do this star pattern.

Now we want to torque our ARP flywheel bolts to 70 foot pound, which is recommended by ARP for their hardware. You want to hold the crank dell and since it will make it a lot easier to hold it so, that way I can torque these to spec. Again, you want to do the star pattern as well. Ready to begin the clutch installation, you want to take a look at your clutch disk. It's actually labelled flywheel side, just to make sure, a part of the hub is going to face outward. You'll want to grab your alignment tool, again this is a 26 spline so, it doesn't require an aftermarket input shaft or, a TKO like I have. Line it up. Now we're going to put on the provided shim from the cloud. This will line up with our dells. We're putting a couple of bolts in here just to hold it for now. Don't put anything tight just yet. Get a couple started and now we can install the rest of our clutch bolts.

Now we're going to torque our clutch bolts to spec. Ford's spec for the clutch bolt is 35 foot pound of torque and an additional 60 degree turn on each one. This part here, you want to be careful, if you have a second set of hands, it will make it a lot of easier. What you want to do ... This will have some play. You want to make sure you have that as centered as possible because, when you go to put the metal input shaft, if it's not dead on, you'll have to take this all back apart again to get it all lined up. Again, same idea with the star pattern. What we're going to do is do the 35 foot pound each bolt first. That will keep the clutch in place and we'll go back for them all again. Now again, with each clutch bolt, torque the 35 foot pound, we're going to go an additional 60 degrees.

Now, we're actually going to install the bell itself. The first thing you want to do is put the pivot ball in. This is something we probably are going to have to adjust later. I usually kind of put it towards the bottom at about 3 turns out is usually a good starting point. Tighten that up. This is going to sit on the dells as well. Just put it on both of those. We're going to start with the Allen headed bolts. These are actually what will hold the bolt to the block. All of the other hardware is just additional hardware to support the bell-housing. Once you mount the bell with these, the rest of the holes get these nut and bolts that are included. For now, I'm actually not going to put them on the car just yet. I'm going test my headers, make sure the input shaft lines up and everything. Once all of that is good then, I'll put these in and the bell-housing install will be finished.