Clutch feels less aggressive in stop and go commute

[foodtruck]

I wonder if anyone else has the following. When I drive off in the morning and the car is cold, the engagement point is very distinct and effective. From the initial engagement point, I barely have to lift the pedal any more to get lots of friction and get the car going from first with very little revs.

During the afternoon commute, however, the engagement feel changes. It seems the clutch grab point doesn't shift but it's distinctly less aggressive afterwards, and so I have to let it out a tad further, to sort of let the engine "lean on it" more and give it more revs for a clean start. It almost feels like the disks are bouncing off each other instead of biting in. On top of that, I start to get a small rattle just as the clutch is about to be fully released, but I think that's just an excessive transmission slop that some of our cars are plagued with and isn't really related. Come next morning or the day after, and the clutch feel is back to being awesome.

Has anyone else had similar symptoms? Do clutches normally change their dynamics like that when they heat up? I'm not entirely sure how it was in the beginning since I was learning to drive manual. I'm 99.999% certain that the clutch isn't slipping, since it passes all of the normal "floor it on the highway in high gear" tests. Additionally, I never rev it higher than 2k RPM when starting.

Cheers,

 

[grnmachine02]

It's probably just warming up. Clutches tend to grab harder when cold, at least in my experience. Some race clutches actually grab harder the hotter they get, but those are a whole different animal.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

This car has the "lightest" clutch I've ever used. It almost feels more like on/off than friction-based. With that said, I haven't seen any difference in performance, but I do get the rattle when engaging the clutch. It's been driving me a little crazy - I don't know if it's transmission related, or direct-injection-diesel-type-noise from the engine. Seems to be relative to the amount of gas I'm giving at the time.

 

[Accel Junky]

The clutch spring makes it a lot lighter. I deleted it on my 2011 Mustang and it made it linear and stiffer but I'm not sure if that same effect will occur on the FiST

 

[M-Sport fan]

This car has the "lightest" clutch I've ever used. It almost feels more like on/off than friction-based.

+1

In fact, it feels so light to me that I was doubting it's ultimate strength, longevity, and torque holding capacity on the test drive.

But MANY on here have proven, many times over, just how strong it really is, as it's limits go right up to launching 400+ WHP on sticky drag slicks, at which point most seem to install dedicated aftermarket clutches.

 

[M-Sport fan]

Some race clutches actually grab harder the hotter they get, but those are a whole different animal.

Yup, as in the multi-disc carbon variety.

 

[Intuit]

You should start slipping near idle, and definitely not slipping at anywhere near 2,000 RPM. However if you're slipping near idle and are at the same time lugging the engine, you will get sort of a rattle sound... purely the engine... and a result of lugging it.