Quick and Dirty Review: Valeo Single Mass Flywheel Conversion Kit

[az3579]

I decided to write a quick review on ECS' site and figured I'd copy and paste this here for anyone interested in this kit. It's not up to my usual review standard, but I had a limited amount of characters to work with and this short blurb pretty much gets my point across.

I hope someone finds this useful.

I purchased this kit as a replacement to my original equipment, the stock dual mass flywheel and clutch, which lasted to 297k miles. I wanted a replacement that was an improvement but drove just like stock.


When the kit got installed, I regained my smooth light clutch operation and the pedal was no longer binding. The clutch feel is excellent; it is easy to determine where the bite point is, and has smooth behavior when slipping the clutch at low revs.


There are two rather large drawbacks to this kit, however. Both of these issues pertain to NVH (noise, vibration, harshness).


Starting with noise; there is an awful amount of chatter. At low revs and under load (between 1000-1500 RPM), either the flywheel or the clutch chatter incessantly. Occasionally this will occur at idle in neutral as well. This is behavior I would expect out of a lightweight flywheel kit, which this is NOT. As a result, I get all of the noise without any of the performance gain, which is a huge disappointment. Because I didn't want chatter, I was willing to stick to a stock level of performance (which I received) while retaining stock noise levels (which I did NOT receive).


Secondly, harshness was also affected. When in gear and letting off the throttle, I now get a horrible clunk in the rear end that I did not have before the clutch job. I also notice this clunk occasionally when upshifting and being ever so slightly off in the rev match. This is not an issue pertaining to my bushings as they are all in excellent condition. This issue started immediately after the clutch job.


All in all, this is a decent value replacement for the stock setup. If I had to do it again, I'd most likely go back to a dual mass kit as I was still able to squeeze a ton of miles out of that configuration while retaining all of the smoothness BMW engineered into the kit. If harshness doesn't bother you, then this is a great kit for the money.

For reference, here is a link to the exact product I purchased from ECS Tuning:
https://www.ecstuning.com//b-valeo-p...est#tabReviews

[danewilson77]

Thanks BP!

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[704sw]

Perfect summary of my experiences as well.

[Reasoned1]

I'm sorry for you guys... I recently had the same kit installed in my 2005 330xi (sport package), and my experience is quite different. I have absolutely no chatter whatsoever. I tend to be a little abrupt with my clutch release and, when I am, I get a "clunk" proportional to the abruptness of the release, but I can easily avoid any clunk by intentionally and gingerly releasing the clutch. I still have an excellent OEM clutch in my ZHP that is softer in this respect, but I attribute this to the expected difference between the single and dual mass designs.

As for clunking in gear, I sometimes get a bit of a jolt in low gear at low speed when abruptly releasing the accelerator but never at speed, in higher gears (3rd and up), or when rev-matching (other than what I described above).

I love this clutch and was delighted to pick it up for $380 on sale (so much so I bought a spare for my ZHP). Note that when I replaced the clutch, I also replaced the drive shaft center support bearing and guibo.

[az3579]

So it sounds to me like you're actually having the same experience as us, only without the chatter.

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[Reasoned1]

Well, since I get no chatter and nothing about its performance can be called "horrible" to me, seems like my experience is significantly different.

[slater]

So it sounds to me like you're actually having the same experience as us, only without the chatter.

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so, how is your car behaving compared to mine? like, i have a lot of trans noise. it was there before installing the SMF kit though.

i don't have any chatter. smooth engagement, no noise. i do have the drivetrain 'clunk' or 'thud' when going on/off throttle abrubtly, but i attribute this to a couple things:

1. backlash in the diff
2. crazy amount of throttle sensitivity in the shark tune (likely going back to the latest stock ZHP tune to compare)

if i am smooth with clutch engagement, i don't have that clunk/thud in the diff - like @reasoned1 said above.

the only difference i am wondering about between our collective experiences here is the break-in procedure! i know that i was super reserved with the throttle, and diligent about the 800-1000 shifts.

i am also going to be doing one of these kits in the X3, if we keep it that long, so that will be another data point.

[Reasoned1]

When I do get the "jolt" (it doesn't sound like a typical "clunk" from backlash in the the diff), I think it's coming from the clutch, itself, and is due to sudden engagement of the drivetrain. I tend to think this is to be expected from a single mass flywheel and is why the dual-mass flywheel was invented in the first place.