8th Gen Civic Clutch Master Cylinder Adjustment

Published by Lan on December 30, 2019December 30, 2019

If you’ve been following me lately, you’ll know that I’ve been running into major shift lockout problems especially at high RPM from 1st to 2nd. I did some research with conflicting results at first. Seems the solution was to go the EM1 clutch master cylinder (CMC) route and that solved the problem for some people, which drove me nuts.

I did however, stumble upon following video which proposed that the solution was to simply adjust the clutch pedal height and clutch master cylinder rod.

I then came across this gem. It is a great and informative vid with the pedals still in the car.

I feel the vid does a great job of explaining how to do the adjustment but not so much why it works and I kinda like understanding the why.

However, I don’t quite understand the mechanics of it fully, but the problem has something to do with a diaphragm in the CMC (?) and the amount of stroke the push rod has that causes engagement issues. I’m not sure…

The picture below shows how the clutch pedal sits after I made the first adjustment. Notice how the yellow stopper isn’t fully resting against the switch? That’s not good. That’s why adjusting the push rod afterwards is necessary. The second vid does a great job at explaining this.

Below is how it’s supposed to look after the push rod adjustment with 10-18mm of pedal play. The pedal is supposed to be resting against the pedal stopper as shown below. There should not be tension on the CMC.

My first impression?

Engaging the clutch in first gear is a night and day difference! There really is no other way to describe it. The engagement point feels much better than before as it was lower to engage.

I went out to try out a high RPM shift from first to second. BUTTER!

I have zero complaints about the adjustment. Considering this was $0 and at most 15 minutes of time, this is over, above, and beyond worth it. The real test is when I take it out for a DRIVE at the next autox event. I’m hoping this will be the solution to all of my mis-shift problems.

Can’t wait to find out! LEHGO!