Early on in the planning of my EV project I had to answer this question for myself. The simple fact is that the decision can be made based on your personal preference. Why? Well I’ll try to explain it by comparing the two.

Clutchless:

The clutch disk, flywheel, clutch slave and even the clutch pedal are removed. The act of shifting is performed by lifting you foot off of the accelerator and moving the gear selector lever to neutral. Then slowly move the gear lever towards the next gear. As the next gear is approached a device called a “synchro” begins spinning up the gear to match the speed of the input shaft on the transmission. When the speed is matched the lever will seem to “fall” into gear.

To me this does two things. It removes some of the rotational mass, the flywheel, increasing slightly the efficiency of the motor. Second it forces you to change your driving habits by slowing down the act of shifting. This, in my opinion, increases the range of your vehicle.


Clutch(ed):

A conversion that retains the clutch has a degree of additional complexity. This is due to the fact that the clutch disk, flywheel and clutch slave cylinder are retained. Why? The main reason is that the adapter plate and coupler system must be designed in a way as to allow for the required clearances to house all of these additional parts. In contract to the clutchless system the car will still shift in the same manner as before.

“WAIT!” you say? “That should be better right? I’ll be able to drive the car just as before when it had an I.C.E.”


My Conclusion:

On the surface this assumption holds true, very true. In fact it is true, but, I wanted to have all of the help I could get in maintaining my original design goals. With a clutch it seams that you will shift just like before, slowly releasing the clutch, wasting precious energy. Also, shifting up through the gears you will more than likely try to accelerate faster. With a clutchless system you are forced to slow down and change the way that you drive.

This is my opinion and my comparison of the two systems. I share this in the hopes of helping others make the decision when the time comes.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 6:28 pm and is filed under EVBIMMER. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.