Lightened Flywheels

[Spurdo]

A lightened flywheel is excellent for track but for street driving i wouldn't even bother. as others have said its a pain in the arse. initial start-up and low revs your car will start to jerk back and forth.

do you speak from personal experience?

on mine initial start up is exactly the same as stock. no jerking back and forth involved.. whats this about low revs eh? mine still revs just the same.

is easier to stall though.

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

i've been driving around for a month now in my mates car with an exedy lightened flywheel... I have to say i still prefer my stock one.

the exedy isn't drasticly light, but imho it is annoying on the street, and doesn't give any noticeable difference when caining it

[MBS206]

Half the time people blame the flywheel, when in fact it's the clutch and pressure plate making it a bitch to drive.

I had a 6puk button clutch in mine with a 1250KG pressure plate, on a 4.5KG flywheel. never had stalling issues myself, could drive it off the mark at 800RPM... Mind you, hand the keys to friends and because of the bitey clutch, it took them 50 goes to get moving.

Changed to an organic clutch plate and anyone who drove it afterwards loved it...

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

nah, this clutch is no harder than mine

mine is an exedy HHHDBC and his is a hyper single

[Birds]

Half the time people blame the flywheel, when in fact it's the clutch and pressure plate making it a bitch to drive.

I had a 6puk button clutch in mine with a 1250KG pressure plate, on a 4.5KG flywheel. never had stalling issues myself, could drive it off the mark at 800RPM... Mind you, hand the keys to friends and because of the bitey clutch, it took them 50 goes to get moving.

Changed to an organic clutch plate and anyone who drove it afterwards loved it...

I agree about an organic clutch making it easy to drive, but you can still blame the flywheel equally in that scenario, because it's a catalyst in the equation - an heavier flywheel on take off will be more forgiving, regardless of the clutch type.

To use a weird analogy, it's like blaming your bald tyres for not getting traction off the line, when your diff is still a single spinner. You can amend either to improve traction.

[The Dan]

Exactly.

And people are still forgetting that whether they can feel it or not, a different weight flywheel DOES make a difference. It's physics. You cannot argue against it.

[Nee-san]

Whoever said the flywheel acting as a dampener is totally correct.

also in furtherance of what Dan said, the inertia of the heavier flywheel makes a car far nicer to drive in areas where you are having alot of transient throttle conditions, which is a fancy way of saying, when your bumper to bumper, speeding up and then braking every 20 metres a very light one will drive like an absolute dog.

Edited March 24, 2011 by Nee-san

[Birds]

Another real world example to demonstrate said effects, as far as daily driving is concerned, is throttle on/off situations or inconsistency in throttle control, e.g. bumpy surfaces in low gears or speed bumps. In most cars I clutch in and slip for a speed bump anyway, but sometimes I coast over it in 1st gear and whilst manageable with a steady throttle foot, sometimes the engine RPM will bounce around (bouncing the chassis with it) and take some time to stabilise. This will be worse with a lightened flywheel. Same with bumper to bumper traffic, as mentioned above, when you can't get out of 1st...you're either in for a rough ride or you'll burn your clutch to death.

EDIT: Oops, sorry for the first sentence of that Nee-san, it sounds a lot like what you've just said.

[GTRPowa]

do you speak from personal experience?

on mine initial start up is exactly the same as stock. no jerking back and forth involved.. whats this about low revs eh? mine still revs just the same.

is easier to stall though.

I habitually let the clutch out without any accell at all. Lightened flywheels will jerk the car more, from personal experience. But in the hands of a person who uses some gas with the clutch, they probably wouldnt notice it, no. I think the initial reason for lightened flywheels was to try and sync the engine revs with your gear change speed. Since racers generally change through gears faster, having the engine drop revs faster will help with shifting, saves planting the clutch to get the engine (spinning at 8000) to match the clutch (spinning at 5000)

Edited March 24, 2011 by GTRPowa

[ahh 33 s2]

where can i purchase such a flywheel,

any traders on here selling them

[Nee-san]

Another real world example to demonstrate said effects, as far as daily driving is concerned, is throttle on/off situations or inconsistency in throttle control, e.g. bumpy surfaces in low gears or speed bumps. In most cars I clutch in and slip for a speed bump anyway, but sometimes I coast over it in 1st gear and whilst manageable with a steady throttle foot, sometimes the engine RPM will bounce around (bouncing the chassis with it) and take some time to stabilise. This will be worse with a lightened flywheel. Same with bumper to bumper traffic, as mentioned above, when you can't get out of 1st...you're either in for a rough ride or you'll burn your clutch to death.

EDIT: Oops, sorry for the first sentence of that Nee-san, it sounds a lot like what you've just said.

It's cool man, some people need to be told more then once

[Checkbuzz]

Thread update - Fitted a 6.8kg Revsolution steel billet flywheel from NPC (very nice bit of kit) and I love it!

The engine is more responsive and easier to drive... I haven't found any downside to it at all.

In fact after driving around town, on the motorway and through the twisty stuff IMO it is better then the stock item in every respect.

Definately a recommended mod for the few hundred $$$ that it costs and I was replacing the clutch anyway.