Lightened and balanced flywheel

[dr_mat 0]

Lighter flywheels make the car more jerky to drive, and make the engine easy to stall. The VR has pants-all torque at 750rpm anyway, without adding a low-mass flywheel to the mix...

Car manufacturers wouldn't be very sucessful selling cars that are harder to drive and even harder to drive *smoothly*..

 

are you speaking from experience there?

 

No, I'm not.

 

I'm speaking as a person with a clue about physics. Practical experience, however, I don't have. You say you've had no problems, I believe you. I'm sure that I would have no problems with a car with a lightened flywheel either. The question was "is there a downside" - I answered it!! :)

[flusted 0]

It depends how light you go.My girlfriend jumped in my car and drove it after the flywheel and she noticed it picked up easier but notice anything else (and this is a woman were talking about!)

[Roger Blassberg 0]

Neither a Mini nor a LHD VW, but a Sunbeam Rapier !! The flywheel would have amputated my feet just above the ankles had it got free.

 

Indeed with a Mini, once it gets off the end of the crankshaft there is no gearbox spigot to keep it roughly in line, only a few lightweight aluminium castings to stop a very heavy saw-edged lump from jumping about all over the place.

 

Best wishes

 

RB

[yellowslc 0]

Exact reason that i personally refuse to use turned down oem flywheels. SFI approval is a must on something like this. http://www.roadraceengineering.com has a tech page with regards to how they inspect OEM mits flywheels prior to lightening them. Yet they still suggest billet ones.

[PhatVR6 0]

I'm speaking as a person with a clue about physics.

 

but not car tuning...........

[Supercharged 2]

but not car tuning...........

 

Thats a bit harsh... I heard he managed to extract an extra 0.5 Bhp out of his old Cavalier by removing the air filter... :lol:

[dr_mat 0]

but not car tuning...........

 

Thats a bit harsh... I heard he managed to extract an extra 0.5 Bhp out of his old Cavalier by removing the air filter... :lol:

 

The cavalier only got faster when bits fell off... :)

 

Nope, I'm not a car tuner. I'm waiting to be proved wrong tho.. The only actual physics I saw about lightening flywheels proved around a 0.5 bhp improvement in first gear. In other gears the difference was even less significant... :)

 

There may be OTHER reasons why lightened flywheels are good, but the performance gains seem to me to be often overstated.

[PhatVR6 0]

As I said before, you won't see BHP gains on a dyno.

 

but you WILL feel the difference in pick up on the road.

 

the car will produce no more power, but the engine has less weight to spin up, so it will accelerate quicker.

 

put it this way, my corrado with it on feels almost as light as my old mk2, yet I know for a fact it's at least 200KG heavier.

 

and I still managed to run a 2.1 60' in the corrado, which is bl00dy good for a FWD car of that weight.

[Henny 0]

with Phatty on this one ALL the way from that last post... 8)

[6potdub 0]

Phatvr6 - do you have a web site (or contact) for Helix as a quality FW is next on my list.

 

Thanks mate. 8)