NorCal Cobra. Which clutch do you have in the car? Mcleod makes 6 different setups for any motor. The pressure plates have load ranges from 2,400 lbs, to 3,800 lbs. The discs are from organic to full metal suface or pucks. Fly wheels are all steel, steel with inserts, aluminium with steel inserts that are rebuildable. As far as a bad pilot bearing, It can cause a clutch problem. Over time the trans mission as a whole will be harder to shift and the input bearing will start to whine. You might even get a little vibration in the drive train. I am hoping the the bellhousing was setup to the back of the motor and centered for runout. If not this is hard on the pilot bushing or bearing because of alignment. Mine was .038" out to start, when done I was down to .002-.003". This needs to be done and or checked before you even try to fix the clutch problem. You can build a house without a strong and solid footings under it. I am hoping your motor has not leaks and that the inside of the bellhousing is dry. If not the
oil will get between the flywheel, disc, and pressure plate and over time, glaze and burn the flywheel and pressure plate faces. This will give you a hell of a chatter on takeoff in 1st gear. The only thing you might feel in the higher gears would be a little slippage on release. It's about loading the clutch. Did you break in the clutch right with normal driving? or hammer the car from the start? This will glaze the disc and cause the same chatter problem. As far as the mount of the slave cylinder, IMO it needs to be mounted on the motor and not on the frame. Pat's picture is a perfect setup of a slave system. Everything has to move or twist, if not it will snap over time.
You have twisting of the motor and the frame. For fine tuning a clutch this will not work in the racing world. I have had trucks with solid link setups, the bodies get weak and lossen over time and you start to have clutch problems. Clutch pedal stop is also needed to prevent over extendsion on the slave and bend either the fork or the pressure plate fingers of forks, depending on the pressure plate. Your clutch is junk either way and need a new one. Buy one that is going to match the car weight, amount of torque and HP, and type of driving. Street, roadracing, 1/4 drags, autocross or combo of all. Go up 1 pressure plate load range because of the car. The disc is going to be based on how well you can REALLY drive a clutch car. Ceramic or Kevlar disc over stock OEM. If you have the money, the winner is the Street twin disc if setup right. You have a soft clutch pedal and about 800HP holding power. Not CHEAP. They are quiet if setup right and you get no noise. IMO stay way from Centerforce!!!
If you want to talk about this more send a e-mail to my box or give me a call at 732-254-3536 in the evenings est time, or number to call you.There is alot more info on this also. Rick L.