[james schaechter]

We have used a sealed bearing in the end of the crank on our Chevys. You need to either cut a snapring groove to hold it or machine a ring that has enough crush to hold it. We did that in our modified engines as well and have never had a failure. One other pilot bearing that I tried is the kevlar one. I put one in a 327 and have had no issues with it in two seasons of running. Put green loctite on it and it stayed. I noticed many diesel trucks had a kevlar pilot bearing so they must be spec to severe use. Anyway, I think ram and others make them. We bought ours at the carshopinc.
For what it is worth, there are some great options on clutches out there. Yes a data logger is really needed or you will have a harder time really getting exactly what you want.
I have run all kinds of clutches and have found that lighter is quicker, but only if you can figure out how to slip it enough to keep it from bogging and still not drive through the clutch down track.
I can't tell you how many times we had pullednthe light stuff out and would put the heavier clutch back in becausenit was quicker. Only until we stuck with it and made ouselves figure it out did we finally discover what it needed to be right. Only testing on your specific car can lead you to discover that. Even the best clutch person can only advise you enough to get you close. You will have to do some good testing.
I will say that to me, the advanced stuff is the easiest to tune counterweight with. It just seems to do what I think it will do.
I know many slam Jeff because he comes off like he is a sales manager for youngblood, but it is an easy clutch to work with. I have said this before, I have never bought a new one from him either.
An advanced clutch set on kill will eat some disc. When we are not interested in the quickest run, but are just set fornthe eliminator and don't want to worry about slipping too much, we leave counterweight alone and just put some more base in. It bogs a bit, but is very consistant.
Another thing hou might consider if you feel that you are hitting it too hard, is to try a smaller disc. You tuning window might be smaller, but you could try this for the cost of a custom size disc.