General opinion of Lightened fly wheels

[sopachrga]

I have finally got enough time and money again after having my house robbed to get my clutch done in my S/C AW11.

I also want to get the fly wheel lightened. Is this a good idea? I have heard a lot of horror stories about them flying apart etc...

Or Would I be better off to save the money and buy a proper lightned fly wheel.

What sort of cost would a new one be?
I am quite short of cash at the moment after the robbery, so I am trying to be cheap!


Please don't reply unless you actually have some useful info on this.

[Adamal]

Yea, I'd say that getting it lightened is too risky.

Now I'm no expert, but over time your flywheel would probably get certain stress points making it a bit weaker in some places. I doubt theres a way to tell where these are and getting it lightened could bring emphasis to these weak points.

At least you'll have peace of mind with one that is specifically engineered to be lighter and will probably perform better too!

[snwtoy]

Depending on the flywheel, some have a lot of meat (ballast which helps the engine idle smoother) and some don't.
If you're taking it off the first thing you should probably do is get it checked for fractures before you consider lightening it...
I've had a custom billet one made for just under $500 by a place in Albany that I always forget the name of Before that I was running a flywheel made about 25% lighter by machining (GTti charade).
Generally tho, what Adamal said ..

[Dr-X]

I personally disagree with lightened flywheels altogether on road cars, but if you do, please get a decent one. Dont bother lightening your stock one, not worth losing your legs over.

[CAMB01]

SC engines don't like lightened or lighter flywheels, i don't exactly what it is but the SC unit goes out of wack.

[ChaosAD]

SC engines don't like lightened or lighter flywheels, i don't exactly what it is but the SC unit goes out of wack.

Is that from experiance or what youve read on the net?

Do a search there was another thread on it a while back

[Dell'Orto]

I personally disagree with lightened flywheels altogether on road cars, but if you do, please get a decent one. Dont bother lightening your stock one, not worth losing your legs over.

Potentially alot more fatal in a MR2...flywheel is just to the side of the driver

A properly lightened flywheel is ok, provided its not too heavily chopped, and its done in the right areas. But the cost of a billet one isnt that prohibitive, and in the long run is a better option.

[kingcorolla]

anuther one of these threads.

yea go for it sopachrgr, but sum places it might cost you an ARM and a LEG

[Bazda]

umm i disagree with all of you cos mine got lightened on my car when it was s/c and it went better than any other standard sc i have driven.

What they do is where the flywheel bolts up to the pressure plate they take all this metal away around the holes away, if someone posts a pic of one up i can tell u what i mean.

precision engineering does this, he has the program on his cnc and it doesnt cost much at all to lighten it, and also it seems much lighter than a standard 4agze one.

[malc]

Yeah was just thinking,
I know of a few people that had their flywheel lightened with no probs what so ever.
Ill probably do it with mine, it just has to be done properly.

[sanchez]

i'v had a couple lightened, as long as you don't go overboard, you shouldn't have 2 many problems, make sure you get it all balanced as well.

[RedMist]

And as pieces of metal pass through all parts of the car, traveling at more than 300kph, damage your legs beyond repair and possibly remove enough blood to kill you. Please let the last words that pass through your mind be "RedMist told me not to do it"
Do it properly. Removing material from the center of a flywheel is useless. You want all material to be on the outside of the flywheel. In order to do so you'll weaken the flywheel and promote existing cracks in the now 10-20 year old material to ensure disintegration. I know it costs more but isn't buying a proper light flywheel worth the piece of mind?
I run a 4kg ultralight formula atlantic flywheel. And it works well in the racing environment its designed for. I wouldn't even bother in a road car. Get rid of those heavy mag wheels and put the factory wheels back on. You'll probably notice more inertia improvement.

[craigt]

Dont lighten the original cast flywheel, they do have a habit of popping.
If it does come apart, and trust me they do! At high rpm you will lose your flywheel, bellhousing, clutch etc. You also stand a really good chance
of smashing the back of the block, bending the crank, and damaging the
gearbox input shaft. A billet flywheel will never come apart, I even go to the extreme of replacing the cast pressure ring in the clutch.
And yes I have had a cast one of those come apart on me as well!

Last clutch I saw come apart was in a mini on the starting grid at Ruapuna last year. Luckily it didnt go thru the firewall, but the ringgear ( at least half of it ) made it through the metal front bumper.
Imagine if that had gone thru the firewall. I'd rather not!!

If your foot gets cut off by a nice sharp blade, they can probably sew it
back on! If it gets cut off by a flywheel, it will go straight in the bin!

[Bazda]

its because where ever u take your flywheels they are taking the meat out the middle, this guy doesnt do that, he takes the meat off the outisde with a cnc and u dont need to rebalnce the flywheel.

he said he has done many and they race their cars out at pukekohe/taupo/manfield.
This was the guy who made the 10s n/a quad rotar mazda FOUREE