Lightened Flywheel

[lockyer89]

Anyone had this done? Is it worth the money or is just really just for racing etc...

 

How much do you reckon i can expect to pay someone to carry out the works? There are some on fleabay for around £80...

 

What are people's thoughts?

 

Cheers

[Guest mower man]

It will spin up a little quicker and also shut down quicker because of the lack of wieght may make it snatchy to drive but like all of the things we do or fit if you really want to --do it mower man

[Longboarder]

I have a 5kg steel zetec retroford flywheel on the ST engine. It does spin up quicker, making downchanges quicker on track. At 5kg there is still enough mass to avoid lumpy idle and the change is smooth. I can't honestly say its a mod that is worth spending the money on unless you spend a lot of time on track. There are also dangers in carving bits off a cast flywheel. Done wrong or if there are casting weaknesses they can explode releasing a shower of shrapnel through your legs. Not nice.

 

Nigel

[lockyer89]

Ok cool, thanks for the replies. I was a little suspect of it making it snappy, but if you get used to it and play it to it's advantages it could become a bit of a demon. But the shrapnel idea...ouch! Advice would be to go for a steel one then...

 

Cheers

 

Simon

[Snapperpaul]

You can just pare back the outer steel circle at the back of the flywheel as this is where most of the inertia is, I would not recommend touching any areas near the centre

Steel flywheel is safer if reving high and I would also fit ARP flywheel bolts and a dowl or 2

[brumster]

If we're talking on a Pinto I'm not sure I'd bother. Modern day cars tend to have pretty heavy flywheels (dual-mass) for economy, and the engine responsiveness really suffers, but I'm not sure our old trusty lumps really suffer from that.

 

Having said that, I run a steel flywheel in t'other car at 3.5Kg and it's perfectly driveable, so if you really want one, I wouldn't worry too much about it. As to what benefit it plays in a road car, well, like above....

[richardm6994]

I remember reading this somewhere and saved the data on my desktop;

 

Based on average gear ratios and tyre sizes........removing 1kg from the flywheel at a 5 inch radius increases the car's acceleration the equivilent of lightening the chassis by the following kg in each gear....

 

1st gear - 39kg

2nd gear 12kg

3rd gear - 6kg

4th gear - 4kg

5th gear - 3kg

 

So you're main gains would be seen in 1st and 2nd gear acceleration.

 

My lightened flywheel on the V8 makes a vast difference on quick rev-ing and is still very drivable.