21 replies to this topic

[Spider]

I read this a while back when people were talking about torque loss with a lightened set up and found it interesting.
http://www.ca-int.co...ghtFlywheel.pdf

 

You won't loose or gain torque or HP with a lighter flywheel, the HP and torques are made in the cylinders and everything else after that takes something from all the power that is made.

 

The Flywheel stores energy, but it has to sap energy, from what's made in the cylinders, that can be stored.

[driftz]

I would highly recommend it. I have put a lightened flywheel on almost every car iv owned (including my 1275 mini) and I always find its one of the bet bang for the buck mods you can make. It totally wakes the engine up and lets you be much more in control of your drivetrain.

[666junky]

My 1.3 micra engined mini gets a bit 'stall happy' sometimes if im on and off the clutch alot / braking and accelerating hard. just have to keep the revs up a bit in certain situations. my clutch is quite snappy so changing gear can sort of lurch the car alot as the flywheel picks up so quickly lol.

[tiger99]

It is cheaper to make a light flywheel than a heavy one. So please consider why it was made as heavy as it is. There are good reasons, mainly smoothing out firing impulses. If it doesn't do that as well as it should, the drop gears are going to be the first things to suffer, along with the remainder of the drivetrain and even the engine mounts and exhaust. There will be more vibration.

 

Ok for a low mileage competition car, but for serious road mileage the side effects are not so good.

[Spider]

 There will be more vibration.

 

 

 

Hu?  Come again?   I think you have that back to front!

[Dusky]

My own experience: 

 

My spec: AEG 643 cam, 1330 cc, ported mg metro (35x29 valves) head, 3.44 diff

 

Before the lighter flywheel I didn't really see the point, I was very happy with my verto setup wich I've always used in the past. Then decided to go to the road lightened version of minispares when my crank was out again, after reading in vizards that it would lower the chance of breaking cranks at high rpm/

 

First time I started the car I was quite amazed by the big difference it makes in revving, it revs way way smoother. My cam feels quite torquey, and I don't really have difficulties witht he decreased inertia , tho thats partially because I"m used to my dads full race mini..

All in all a very good investment imho :)

[Cooperman]

The only downside is a possible need to slip the clutch when pulling away from stationary. If the FDR is a bit high this will increase clutch wear.

The up-side is better acceleration. Top speed won't be affected.

Don't bother with a full balance unless you are going to be revving to over about 6000 rpm often.

Just lighten it a bit, don't go for a real ultra-light unless it is for competition with a low FDR and mega-revs.