Guaging interest on lightweight Flywheels

Procomm

Procomm

Club Member
Jul 10, 2007
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Gradually Decomposing in a sarcophagus of general
I will shortly be purchasing a lightweight aluminium Flywheel made by Fidanza and just thought i would see if there were any parties interested in having one of these aswell, The product and a short write up are:


Fidanza Built To Fly Flywheels
Fidanza aluminum flywheels are made from the highest quality 6061 T6 aluminum. The material is fantastic for strength, heat dissipation and of course reduction in weight. The friction surface used is an incredibly strong 1050 steel. The plates are milled to meet Fidanza'a high specifications. A Fidanza flywheel can mate with any type of clutch material, including organic, kevlar, ceramic, metallic and sintered iron. Fidanza attaches the friction surface with military grade aerospace fasteners. The ring gears used are also made from 1050 steel and are heat treated for durability. The gears are heated then pressed on and secured with grade 8 button screws. Fidanza was the first to utilize a stepped dowel system in most of their flywheel applications. This doweling method ensures that once the pressure plate is installed the dowels cannot be removed because they become locked into place. Fidanza designs and builds flywheels with extreme precision, giving tuners, racers and builders the high performance and unmatched power they're seeking.

Fidanza Flywheels help:
Any street or race engine produce more usable horsepower!
Any street or race engine lasts longer due to less stress on the crankshaft and bearings!

(9 of 10) 56 Reviews


(99-02) Mercury Cougar 2.0L £223.22 186991
(99-02) Mercury Cougar 2.5L £198.35 186251

These prices do not include shipping, VAT or any duty

Any interest :beer:
 
Procomm said:
Fidanza Flywheels help:
Any street or race engine produce more usable horsepower!
Any street or race engine lasts longer due to less stress on the crankshaft and bearings!
Click to expand...

Both statements are wrong. Flywheel mass does not have any affect on horsepower. Flywheels are there to damp out angular vibration caused by torque pulses from individual cylinders on their power strokes. A lighter flywheel does less damping than a heavy flywheel, and thus INCREASES stress on everything; not reduce it.
 
jamie_duff said:
Both statements are wrong. Flywheel mass does not have any effect on horsepower.
Click to expand...

Playing the Devil's Advocate here, could the first statement not mean that this lightened flywheel makes the existing horsepower more usable, as opposed to increasing the usable amount of horsepower? If a flywheel is lighter, then I assume it will spin more easily when a given amount of torque is applied to it, thus allowing the engine to build revs more quickly, which could in turn be interpreted as having made the available horsepower of the car more usable.

I'm not in the least bit interested in buying one of these, to be honest, but others may be and it's possible that Fidanza's literature suffers from ambiguous grammar, rather than stating falsehoods.
 
Relliott6879 said:
Playing the Devil's Advocate here, could the first statement not mean that this lightened flywheel makes the existing horsepower more usable, as opposed to increasing the usable amount of horsepower? If a flywheel is lighter, then I assume it will spin more easily when a given amount of torque is applied to it, thus allowing the engine to build revs more quickly, which could in turn be interpreted as having made the available horsepower of the car more usable.

I'm not in the least bit interested in buying one of these, to be honest, but others may be and it's possible that Fidanza's literature suffers from ambiguous grammar, rather than stating falsehoods.
Click to expand...

I think you may be correct there Rich, from what i understand a lightened flywheel will improve a vehicals accelleration but will have the adverse effect of putting extra strain on the rest of the drivetrain (as Jamie rightly pointed out), lightening any part of the drivetrain will also cause the engine to idle rougher. To counter this you raise the idle speed, race prepared cars idle at much higher speeds as they have multiple areas of the drivetrain lightened. Gaining anything out of an engine will shorten its life span as inertia stresses are increased. one bonus that comes with lightening the flywheel only is that as mass spins it gains more weight (the method used to subject fast jet pilots to high G's in training) which means that driveability is not as badly effected.
 
Mani, Paul bought his flywheel ages ago and it was fitted last year. I think he was guaging interest in order to combine the shipping so the opportiunity has been missed now.
BTW, the Bolton Mafia don't recommend Black Diamond clutches. I think the last couple they fitted had problems so they now recommend LUK or Valeo (as fitted in mine).
 
well I started a huge argument on a V8 forum I am a member of in canada :LOL: to the point that the following post was put up in response to several members saying that the lightened flywheel doesnt increase power

One does not measure engine horsepower. One measures torque. Accelerating a
heavy flywheel takes a bunch of torque. Accelerating a lighter flywheel takes
less torque. Therefore, when you put a lighter flywheel on a given engine and
test it, the output torque will measure higher. This is because less of the
combustion chamber energy is wasted accelerating the flywheel.

From the
measured torque, one calculates the horsepower. An engine with higher torque at
a certain rpm will therefore have a higher horsepower at that rpm. As a result,
an engine with a lighter flywheel will produce more output horsepower. It is a
simple math problem.

The reason that one obtains "better performance"
and/or "improved engine response" from installing a lighter flywheel is because
there is more output torque and therefore more horsepower available at the
wheels with the lighter flywheel.

so you can clearly see the improvement on the dyno. I used to have the graph,
but it seems to have gotten lost in one of my computer upgrades...

The fact that a lighter flywheel takes less torque to accelerate is a fairly simple
math problem, and if you want, I can bore you with all the details. However, in
the interest of time and space, it might be better if you just accepted the
truth from someone who can do the calculations and actually knows what they are
talking about in this case.

The fact is that "its all a feel thing" is
actually measurable.

:LOL: I started the thread at 3pm it is now on page 96 so almost an epic :)
 
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