Pinto Flywheel

[Guest docter fox]

I was hoping to spend about £100 less than that so lightening is the one for me, time to phone an engineering relative...

 

anybody else weighed their's? mine weighs in at 9.4 but I've just read the section of book that tells you the "standard 2000" weighs 6.5 kg, it came off a 205 block pinto, does this make any difference? as it seems a bit odd to be so different

 

apparantly it's best to keep the 2.0 one and lighten it because of the 8.5 inch diameter as apposed to 7 inch clutch plate on the 1.6

 

I'm a little confused by the white and black bits on the picture snapperpaul posted, what does each section mean?

[Snapperpaul]

The black bits are the bits of flywheel that you remove.

 

For the Cosworth Demon Tweeks do an ally flywheel that weighs 4.6 Kg if you have £302.14 b+ VAT.

[Longboarder]

I'm with Chris. Cast flywheels will explode if too much material is taken off, destroying your ankles in the process. As material removed from the outer edges is very effective and that from the centre, hardly at all I would stick to machining off the 'hump' just inside the ring gear and and for safetys sake not touch it elsewhere. Then balance individualy and together with crank and front pulley. Leave the black bits on in the pic below.

 

Nigel

[Guest Daren.F]

I have attached pictures of a standard 2ltr and a lighter steel fly wheel for conparison

[Guest Daren.F]

Standard

[Guest docter fox]

Thanks for the pics, it's made things a lot clearer

 

I understand how the lighten it, but how do they balance them afterwards?

[Grim]

I'm with Chris. Cast flywheels will explode if too much material is taken off, destroying your ankles in the process. As material removed from the outer edges is very effective and that from the centre, hardly at all I would stick to machining off the 'hump' just inside the ring gear and and for safetys sake not touch it elsewhere. Then balance individualy and together with crank and front pulley. Leave the black bits on in the pic below.

 

Nigel

Little as i know about this, i agree totally. From a physics point of view, the momentum of a rotating mass is dependant on the distance from the crank to the power of 4, ie at twice the distance away it will have 16 times the momentum. (this is if i remember correctly ). Therefore, there is little point removing mass near the crank which also serves to weaken it.

[Guest art b]

ya can get a steel flywheel on ebay for about 120 bucks,

[Snapperpaul]

[i have asked my engineering friends to lighten my cast flywheel as per the posted photo but " err on the cautious"

 

Chris and Longboarder, I like your advise and it will save a bit of money in the machine shop.

[Guest Karl]

We had some one want to do the same with trimming the thick zephyr flywheel on Galeforce Zephyrs (MSN site)and we talked them out of it.Keep your feet and ankles and either use a factory lighter model one if there is one or get a billet steel or alloy one made.I went with a cheaper china made steel billet after the cast ones kept heat cracking even with custom beefed pressure plates, still safer than the new cast iron at high rpm.Flywheels will take out the clutch,block rear, bellhousing,trans tunnel, firewall, bonnet and dash/windscreen as its stored energy.Get the flywheel balanced with the pressure plate too and use aftermarket grade 8 hardware for fastenings.People have been hurt outside the car with flywheel chunks coming out.I use a steel one as stated and will use a steel safety bell housing too as money allows.A rev limiter helps to stop some resulting damage to.Sometimes a lighter flywheel makes a car go slower and idle rough, not always a plus.Try to drive a car with one first or only go a small bit lighter.Torque is what moves a car and a flywheel is important weight wise the smaller or higher tuned the engine is.Some standard FORD hi performance flywheels from the 60's were however nodular cast iron, ford never factory fitted steel ones to the hi per V8's.I used one of these and it did not last as long as steel would.Hope this helps.

Karl

[Guest Phil Slater]

All I can say is my engineer has been modding pinto's for years and knew what he was doing. And given the level of tune I would be achieving he said there would be no problems. He didn't even recommend dowling, just a blob of locktite and and extra 5 or 10 Ibs (can't remember exactly now!!) torque on the bolts over the Ford specs..

 

IMHO, and bearing in mind all the warnings about taking too much metal away and from the wrong places, surely the important bit here is the level of tune? If you are going for big increases then a new steel flywheel is obviously the safest way forward.

[Guest macca]

ya can get a steel flywheel on ebay for about 120 bucks,

Yeah but these aint got the teeth for the starter????

[Guest docter fox]

well my engineering uncle was visiting this week so I've given it to him and given him some pictures, just have to wait and see what happens

[Guest docter fox]

I got the flywheel back yesterday, I asked him to keep pn the safe side of things and using the scales it's gone from 9.4 to 6.2kg, not as extreme as some but it should be a good improvement

[Snapperpaul]

I to have researched further and another local engineering firm with Pinto experience confirms what Phil Slater says.

They seemed to think that once you start to go over 150 BHP flywheel you should review your options on double dowling and or steel etc.