Track Day Clutch Stuck and won't go into gear
 

I signed up for a track event this weekend hoping to have a great time especially since the weather has been clear skies and 75 degrees all weekend... Let's just say it didn't go as planned.

My car is 2007 Carrera S with 26k Miles. My 2nd to the last session at the track I downshifted the car from 4th to 3rd and noticed that when I would push in the clutch pedal it would barely release when letting off of the clutch. I would push it all the way down, and then when letting up it would almost get stuck about 3 inches off the floor and then would come out the rest of the way. Also, I noticed I had to force the car in and out of every gear. I immediately headed to the pit and went to the local performance shop by the track.

Once I slowed down, the car would not go into any gear while stopped. I turned the car off, then pressed clutch in, selected gear, turned car on and was able to drive in 1st gear to the shop. They looked it over, checked the fluids, and bled the clutch fluid. Still, it kept doing the same thing. They said they thought it was probably the pressure plate.

I was able to drive it home even though I had to turn the car off and on at a few stop lights. The car would shift into other gears once the RPM was around 4k or above, but even then it was not smooth and the clutch issue was still there.

Does it sound like they are correct and that it might be the Pressure Plate? Any one had something like this happen before? and know what else it could be if anything?

I have had 5 different cars in manual transmissions. This is the 2nd car I've tracked and I don't think I am being extremely hard on the clutch or transmission so I am confused why this happened on a fairly low mileage car.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I plan on taking to the local Porsche dealer this week.

Why didn't you have it towed home or to the shop? You shouldn't have driven knowing something wasn't right.

Yea, thats a good point. It wasn't very far to home. I may have it towed to the shop.

My vote is pressure plate or throw out bearing

I am thinking throw out bearing.

Quite common with regular fluid. Happened to me at the track few years back in my c2s. Porsche did a full flush and re bleed with motul synthetic and that did the trick ;). Do the brakes with synthetic at the same time, you wont believe the difference it makes especially if you do track days.

So is the moral of the story to always run synthetics?

If you are doing track then yes...absolutely. Particularly if you get stuck into it. I was told the regular fluid overheats in the clutch slave cyl and sticks. Since having it bled with synthetic it never happened again. Brakes are a different story and whilst you dont get dire fade with regular fliuid once you have the sythetic fluids they work so much more efficiently and have a far superior pedal feel. You'd never go back....even if for street use its better.

Synthetic here, still happened, clearly mechanical if hydraulics properly bled. His symptoms are def either pp or tb. Op, don't drive it, take it to an Indy you trust to open trans, inspect tb, pp, clutch disc, and flywheel. Barring good Indy tech, take it to the dealer. Still under warranty?

997 S comes with the self adjusting pressure plate and in competition use it will jack the mechanism and change the release points

Tony

So if I need to replace the clutch with a stock clutch, am I going to have this issue again later on if I continue to track the car?

Is there a better clutch I should buy?

I just replaced my flywheel with a single mass and bought a sprung clutch (sachs stage II); combo is amazing using the oem pressure plate;

Find someone with a TIG and fusion weld the ramps together. First bolt the clutch with your disc (new) in place the little floating pin on the cover will snap in place remove the PP and through the vent holes weld up the ramps in at least 3 places and you are good to go.

Tony

Well I got an update today from Porsche dealer. They pulled out the transmission. They said it was a broken spring on the pressure plate. They said everything else looked fine. They quoted me $1700 parts & labor to put in a new clutch. I told them to go ahead and proceed.

I purchased my car 2 months ago with 25,000 miles. I have only put 2,000 miles on it. I have done 2 track days. I plan on doing around 10 track events per year. I don't know how the 1st owner handled the clutch for the 1st 25,000 miles. I do know the 1st owner was a woman so that could be the problem.

Are stock clutches pretty reliable if driven correctly? Or should I expect to replace a new clutch every 25k?

Laugh of the day!! hilarious.. My previous C2S had just about 25k with absolutely no problems with the clutch so I don't think replacing them that often is needed.