Clutch recommendation

Hey guys, new to the forum. Just purchased a 2020 or man with 80K. The original clutch is now spent, and I'm looking for sound advice on clutch upgrades. I love the truck and plan on keeping it till death do us part. I've done some mild research online regarding the centerforce and ACT clutches. Does anyone have experience with these, or recommend other options? Does dual fiction make a difference, a heavier flywheel, should I replace the master cylinder while I'm in there? It's these sorts of things I would appreciate advice on. Thank you!

 

I’ve never been forced to replace a clutch in my life, but if I had too, on a modern vehicle, I would go with OEM unless I was building a race truck. Treated properly it should survive the life of the truck.

 

Mine is pretty heavy and I can feel that it’s nearing the end of its life. These MT clutches take a beating when used off road or towing. The transmission gearing just isn’t low enough.

If you don’t do a lot of towing or slow crawling off road, I’d definitely go OEM. If you do I’d consider the Centerforce.

 

Stock truck? Stock clutch.

 

I’d go OE unless you have other add ons with significant power increases and drivetrain requirements.
How the heck did someone smoke a clutch in 80k? Must have beat its butt, rode the pedal at the light, and/or towed a lot (I’ve read backing up in an Tacoma MT with a trailer requires 4lo or significant slipping of the clutch).

 

2011 original clutch 168K tow a 17 foot camper every so often, use it as a truck. I will easily get 200K or more out of it.

 

I’ve smelt burning clutch smell countless times in my life. I’m not easy on my clutches, especially my dirt bike clutches. But I’ve never been forced to replace one.

Drive a manual taco over any significant obstacle in 4hi without smoking the clutch is skillz I don’t own

 

Reverse is definitely not geared low enough, 2WD LOW mod solves that issue though. I use it a lot because i tow a trailer quite often. I have zero issues with all the other gears, in fact I like how low the 1st gear is.

Off road? Unless you are in 4HI trying to crawl over obstacles, i dont see how a clutch takes a beating off road in 4LOW.

I am at 65K miles now, my clutch still feels like it did when the truck was brand new. I dont see why I wont get at least another 100-150K miles from it.

 

What do you mean by “heavy”?

 

The stock clutch is good for the vast majority, and most of the early failures are probably defective. If you are one of the ones abusing it for heavy off-road or running large tires or both, then you would likely benefit from a dual friction or stage 2 center force clutch, and should maybe also consider their heavy flywheel and a regear depending on what you are doing.

For me, I like the stock clutch because it is adequate for what I do and it is very predictable to drive. I’ve seen people install aftermarket clutches and have shuddering issues, so I tend to err on the side of OEM.

 

Going to sound old here, I've been driving standards for over 20 years, never burnt a clutch until my truck. It went out under 40k miles too. I was shocked. Then I learned that an OEM clutch would have cost me about the same as an aftermarket one to replace. So I went aftermarket. Why replace with an OEM that wouldn't last IMO. I went with Centerforce since they are somewhat local to me and I also did the accumulator delete. Now I'm over 80K on that same Centerforce clutch. I'm thinking that was a good decision.

 

I get the reasoning, but that is only one data point. The vast majority last much longer than that. It was just an unlucky one. I had 63k on mine when I removed it for the transmission swap and it was still in perfect shape. I bet it was a 200k clutch easily, if not more. But, it’s good the center force is working out.

 

If you do some more searching, you will find others with similar experiences.

 

I've seen them. Just saying that behavior is not typical and you almost certainly would have gotten normal performance out of the next one. Doesn't really matter, my only point was that just because the first one was a 40k mile clutch doesn't mean all them are.

 

I still haven’t weighed it. 35’s, dual swing bumper with a 35 spare and water cans, front bumper and 12k winch, sliders, bed rack with storage and 8 gallons of water, decked, cargoglide, tent, roof rack with 8 gallons of water, roam boxes (trips only), Deaver leaf packs (they do add significant weight over stock) and all the misc crap in there.

Slow speed crawling over significant obstacles, I either burn a little clutch or have to bump to get up and over. I’m always jealous of the autos on the trail, but I love my MT.

It doesn’t take much to make these trucks “heavy”. I need to re-gear. It’s on my list of things to do, it’s a growing list…

In a perfect world I’d love to do the RC60 swap, 5.29’s, double t-case and portals. And I probably still wouldn’t think it’s slow enough

 

Mine definitely takes some abuse off road. But I do drive slow.

 

2lo mod is amazing for driving a manual gearbox on steep terrain slooowly, and I use it for crawling over rough terrain often (I don't rock crawl) without drama.
- I like off road drama on youtube videos, but not while I am driving a 4x4 in remote areas.

2Lo mod essentially lets you use a handful of 'additional gears' - You could argue you get 12 gears in total this way, but there is some overlap.

I'd love to have a drive in a manual taco with 5.29 gears. It may be a good combination. (Is there a gear ratio comparison table on TW somewhere?? - I'll have to look).

If it were up to me, I'd make first slightly lower and I'd close the gap between 1st & 2nd a bit. (2nd could be a bit lower for street use). I then would pull the rest of the gears down a bit to match accordingly.

These ratios would allow for more frequent use of 6th gear. (at the expense of fuel efficiency - likely the reason these are the way they are...). It might imply a slight increased need for shifting - maybe.

 

Kick the info in here for comparisons:

https://www.grimmjeeper.com/gears.html

 

These clutches don't "fail" too often. I'm guessing that at 80k and needing a new clutch, the truck was used for towing and off-roading quite a bit. I took a decent amount of life off my clutch towing (the clutch will shudder occasionally etc.). I coached soccer with a guy who had 205k on the original clutch, but he pretty much just street drove the truck.

Long story short - I would get an OEM clutch for a 3rd-gen Tacoma and plan on doing so when my clutch gives up.

 

I had 5.29s on an otherwise bone stock truck for a while - I really liked the combo. Fuel efficiency took a slight hit, but I still got 18-19 mpg much of the time, especially if I kept to 70 mph. All the gears being lower was nice. 3,000 rpm at 70 was the 6th gear output, and I was perfectly happy with that. I towed in 5th gear at 65 mph and 3300 rpm.

I then swapped to the RC60F which paired with the 5.29s was awesome. Even lower low gears, but brought the highway gears back to some level of normalcy.

With the intention of selling the truck, I swapped the gears back to stock but now have the RC60F with the stock gears. It’s a good combo, although I’m not a huge fan of 6th gear. It is the best fuel economy combo I have achieved so far though and overall it’s a good driving balance.