General question about clutch fluid and pedal feel

Ok, this is not for a Miata but I thought this may apply to any car. This is for a Nissan 350Z. Last weekend at the NTAXS autox I had several runs in a row and while waiting for my last run the clutch pedal felt very light. Also I noticed that when I pushed it in it would not come back out all the way but would hang up a little. If I pumped it several times it would come out. I had no problem with shifting to start the run.

After my runs I worked the course and then when I got back in the car it was fine, no issues. I drove it to work today and again, no issues.

I have run time trial events several times which involves much more shifting and more engine revs for a longer period of time and during these events it has never done this.

Car only has 35,000 miles on it. What do you think it is? Possibly slave cylinder going out? Or is it like brake fade with hot fluid, do you think my fluid got hot so it got spongy?

I have had a car with a slave cylinder go out before and there is no pressure.

This is common on some cars. Check and see if the fluid looks nice and clean, or if it's black and dirty.

If the clutch slave is close to the exhaust you may need to make a heat shield for it.

Buy a Miata ;)

how is your brake fluid.... clutches tend to use the brake fluid and if it's bad or needs bled it will get soft (or the master cylinder could be going out).

Sounds like air in the system, bleed the clutch fluid. Not sure if the 350 shares with the brakes or not.

I'm pretty sure the system is going to be similar to the G35Coupe and they do and their clutch bleeding system sucks dong kong balls.

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Originally Posted by goofygrin

I'm pretty sure the system is going to be similar to the G35Coupe and they do and their clutch bleeding system sucks dong kong balls.

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I believe that they do not share fluid, but they do both use dot 3 but there are seperate resevours for each one, but I will check on that. The fluid in the container looks amber, not dark. My break fluid looked like that too but I just bled the brake system last week and went to the ATE superblue for brakes.

I will check on where the lines route as far as a heat problem. I researched bleeding the system and Goofygrin is absolutely right.

I will be at the PCA Autox school this weekend so we will see if it does it again.

ya looks like they are separate.

In numerous 350z forum posts people say that the steps to fix this are: fluid flush, then master cylinder replacement.