Stillen Supercharger reliabiity

Originally Posted by irondoc

I generally do not keep my cars much past 100K miles, but I have had a single clutch go to 117K (without signs of wear) at which point I sold the car (1998 BMW 540i).
I have seen people do things with a clutch that make it clear they have no idea how a clutch works. A friend of my parents would go through the clutch in her 320 very 10k miles.
I have no doubt that the massive increase in the power of our FI Z's puts the stock clutch under increased stress, however, I also believe that the life span of a clutch will be most determined by how well you use the clutch (clutch spends as little time as possible "partially" engaged, and as much time as possible either all the way "in", or all the way "out"), rather than how hard you push the car.
So, my Z now has 3200 miles 1500 of which are with the Stillen SC. I am very curious to see how many miles I can get out of the stock clutch. I will not be babying the car. I drive it with traction control off most of the time and am continually amazed at how easy it is to leave rubber on the pavement, without actually trying to do so.

Originally Posted by Sh0velMan

My philosophy has always been "clutch out whenever possible" just because putting wear on a TOB (or CSC in our case.. ugh) for no reason by holding in the clutch doesn't make any sense.

I think the #1 thing that people do to wear out clutches prematurely is engine braking improperly.

Rather than double clutching to match engine revs/input shaft to the lower gear, they just slap it in gear and ease the clutch out, forcing the friction material to bear the brunt of bringing engine revs to where they should be...

I have friends that do this to their cars all the time and I shudder every single time.