What are the advantages of a lighter flywheel?

 

better throttle response

 

I'm going to get rid of all those other duplicate threads that popped up.

 

What are the advantages of a lighter than stock flywheel?

 

Your flywheel is bolted to the crank. The crank weighs about 30 lbs or so, and is a balanced part. The flywheel is bolted on to the end of it. The stock flywheel weighs about 15 lbs or so. It has several purposes. It connects to the clutch disk, and also servers as a mass that keeps the inertia of the crank. In addition the pressure plate is bolted to the flywheel, so the weight of the pressure plate should also be accounted for.

The less weight you have on the crank (PP + flywheel) the less mass you have, and therefore it is theoretically more efficient. It also free revs faster when you blip the throttle in neutral, because there is less for the engine to get moving. It tends to be more difficult to drive (with a lightened PP) because there is less interia to push through the clutch engagement, which causes it to be easier to stall.

In addition the car's revs will fall faster between shifts, because of the less interia, so you will need to shift faster for it to be smooth.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Chris

 

Alfredo, I have merged your other thread that you started on the same topic together in this one thread. Please don't start more than one thread on the same topic at the same time. Thanks.

 

In addition to what cjb80 said, lightened flywheels also improve accelleration (in theory) because there is less inertia to overcome (similar to light weight wheels). In reality, I don't think reducing the weight of the flywheel could ever be felt during acceleration.

 

I have always been told that a lighter flywheel will translate to added hp on a dyno. Myth or reality?

 

On a DynoJet, a LW flywheel would increase measured HP, but not enough to notice. It would be about like the difference between wheel and tire weights. A Dynojet computes the applied torque by measuring the accelleration of a weighted drum over time. The inertia of the crank, FW, driveshaft, brakes, wheels, half axles, etc. all add to the inertia of the drum.

 

one drawback, loss of effective torque.
and in a car that has no torque, its not a good idea. 15lbs is so light anyways. average flywheel weighs between 25 and 40. on my drag car, im lightened to 12 down from 25. but the car only weighs 1600 lbs.
my two cents. lates dave