Clutch fork upgrade needed
 

Replacing the clutch in my 2015 FRS and was going to upgrade the clutch fork but reading up on them the description is talking about the upgrade as being needed for use with stronger pressure plates. If i'm not beating on the car (daily driver only) and going with an OEM clutch and parts should I just leave it alone?

Depending on your mileage, it might be worth to just get a new OEM one and put it in

Verus

FWIW - my '15 is mostly OEM. When I replace the clutch I'll use a Verus fork and pivot.

replace it with Verus fork.

Sooooo, how did you manage to wear out the OEM clutch?

:iono:

I should have said it's my daily now. When I bought the car I used to clutch kick it and beat it up a little as it was my weekend play car. It's been my daily for 2 years now and it's babied now but i took a few years off its life early on.
I am making an assumption its the clutch based on the noise it makes when the clutch is in it makes a metal on metal sound that has gotten progressively worse the past 3 weeks.

Versus. Done.

You are describing the sounds my throw-out bearing made as it puked. How many miles do you have on the car? Verus offers it's fork, with a throw-out bearing at a good price. And get the pivot for a little more. If you are going to keep the car, do the clutch and the Verus fork with a new throw-out, and as long as you don't beat on it, the combination will last longer than you will keep the car. A major part of the money involved is, if you don't do you own work, pulling the transmission.

Yep the throw out bearing was on its way out. Everything swapped out fine. car has 64k on it. Unfortunately because of the time i had scheduled to have the work done the Versus fork didn't come in time so it didn't get done. This car will be my daily for another year and then it's going back to be a weekend/play car. If the stock fork starts to give way I will have the time to pull the transmission and replace the fork at that time.

Didn't see this in time, but the OEM fork actually went through 2 updates. With the latest one also being used for Gen2 which has to handle more torque and herspers so ppl might want to give the new updated version a try if they're not 300bhp+. Its 30531AA220 for both gens and only $26 instead of $175 for verus

Anybody have a side by side comparison of 1st and 2nd gen forks?

I have a 1st gen fork on my 200,000 mile "13 FR-S. On my third TOB but the fork is original. Works fine, lasts a long time.

I guess I could spend a bunch of money on an aftermarket part, but why?

I'll work on ordering one to compare to the factory units we have here.

You are one of the lucky ones. We've seen people with cars that are barely out of warranty broken in various locations. No rhyme or reason for the failures.

https://i.imgur.com/GiREoAK.png

https://www.verus-engineering.com/we...unique=8ffa362

https://www.verus-engineering.com/we...unique=8ffa362

Your pictures make no sense. A miss engineered part should have the stresses start a failure in the same place every time. That looks like there was zero quality control on the material/manufacturing.

I am not worried I have your fork and pivot.

Is this a commercial for Versus or what?

I'm willing to bet that I'm not one of the lucky ones. The people who broke their forks were the unlucky ones. I'll bet the actual failure rate for clutch forks is very low.

And I'll believe that until my fork fails. (It'll probably will happen tomorrow since I doubted it.)

Among all the twins out there, of course it is low. It is a known issue if you have a stiffer aftermarket clutch. I have also known of a couple that have done it on all stock clutch setups. We were possibly thinking quick stabs on the clutch pedal probably don't help. The two that I know of that failed all stock where autoX guys, both at the pivot. Again, even among twin drivers out there, autox/track guys are a small number.

Did you ever get the change to compare the two generations?

Had to dredge this one up since I'm gearing up to do a clutch on mine after it started occasionally making strange noises with the clutch out. I'm toeing the line of if I want to replace the stock clutch with a ACT Streetlite or just do OE Exedy.

Just wanted to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong.
My fork broke right after I posted this. Looks just like the second picture.

I have not, my guess is it is either the same or very similar. The WRX units that are much beefier than the FRS/BRZ units still fail, which is why we have a WRX unit as well.

Sorry to hear that.

@VerusEric Why wonder? Just go straight to the Subaru parts website and look up the clutch fork and pivot ball and see that they are the same across ALL year BRZs.

When I looked last, the GR86/BRZ generation wasn't on the parts store.

Looking at it now, yep, same exact clutch fork for the new gen as the old generation. We'll be updating our website and compatibility.

Thanks for raising this point. I believe you're correct, but confirming this requires catching details that aren't immediately obvious.

The parts lookup shows that there are two supersessions for the current part number, so it's easy to guess that this means the BRZ used two different earlier revisions before landing at the current part. However, this is not the case.

The key is to not just look up the current part number, but also explicitly check the supersessions. It turns out the current part number supersedes parts that go all the way back to 1997. The two superseded part numbers cover cars up to 1998 and 2009 respectively and were already out of the picture before our twins.

https://parts.subaru.com/p/49239181/30530aa020.html
https://parts.subaru.com/p/49239182/30530AA021.html

Same with the pivot ball; the one superseded part number went up to 2009, same as the second clutch fork.

https://parts.subaru.com/p/49239206/30537AA060.html


What I'm intrigued with at this point, and don't have an answer for, is where the WRX fork fits into all of this.

https://www.subarupartwholesale.com/...0531AA180.html

While this doesn't directly cross-reference to the BRZ, some of the other vehicles listed in the applications also show up in the application list for our fork. The non-WRX, non-Turbo cars listed (Impreza, Outback 2.5L 5MT for 08-09) for the WRX's fork, appear to also show up in the application list for the BRZ fork.

Searching by application for say an 08 Impreza, both the WRX and BRZ clutch forks show up.

https://www.subarupartwholesale.com/...12-100-01.html

This suggests that the WRX clutch fork is actually interchangeable with the BRZ part.

I think you're trying to read too much into this and getting yourself too far into the weeds. It isn't uncommon to have a part that existed before a car and it also isn't uncommon for a supersession to be just a part number change. I'm not saying that this is the case here.

All the BRZs and 86s right now use the same basic transmission. A few internal parts are different, but the transmission packaging is the same.

Taking the Impreza you mention, did you actually look at the parts diagram and see that they list both clutch forks, but also 2 different pressure plates, 2 different clutch release bearings and 2 different diameter slave cylinders?

My suggestion is to replace the fork with a new (OEM) one every time you replace the clutch and/or throwout bearing. They are inexpensive and it's good insurance.

I also want to add to this. I replaced my clutch with an ORC 409D, told myself the upgraded clutch fork and pivot weren't necessary. My pivot cracked off approximately 5000 mi later. JOY

While my fork seemd fine. I will say, the clutch feel is markedly improved with the Verus fork and pivot!