how many people are running lightened flywheels?

ive been advised against it by a machine shop. the guy said not to lighten the flywheel because it will imbalance everything, wear the engine out quicker, and lessen the effect of the flywheel acting as a heatsink for the clutch.
he said if i wanted to go that route im better of getting the whole lot balanced but it will cost 900!

i know there are a lot of people with lightened flywheels but surely if it wasnt worth it they wouldnt be using them.
how much difference does it make? and do the positives outweigh the negatives?

thanks guys.

 

I don't believe it.

As you're asking for information on the other thread, but are refusing to accept any opinions, and yet here you are prepared to listen to such absolute tosh of an opinion from a machine shop that clearly knows the square root of nothing about flywheels, just so you know where I'm at: sorry but I won't be posting any opinions at all - and I'm out.

[Even though I do own a car with a 3kg works kitcar flywheel on it ]

 

I think at 900 the only thing getting lightened is your wallet!

3.6 kg lightened flywheel myself

STD exhaust manifold and mk1 /mk2 conversion downpipe.

 

chris i dont think you understand. i refuse to take advice from people without first hand experience as it often proves to be wrong. maybe i phrased it wrong in the other thread.

 

Trust me, I understand. I've been in the VW scene for nearly 20 years and Club GTI for 15, and have two separate websites I look after which you might like to browse over to give you some idea - VWMotorsport.info & SeatSport.info.

 

thanks chris i'll have a look.

 

So if you've taken stock of that, to give you some substance on which to base your decisions: lightened flywheels are very commonplace on Club GTI, particularly as the readership is very performance orientated.

Hotgolf does a lot of these for us - see the Entrepreneurs section - and without any adverse feedback I'm aware of at all, and nothing which corresponds with the opinions being expressed in your machine shop.

 

Your machine shop is talking complete and utter bol x. FACT not an opinion.

You want to be looking elsewhere, even a quick squint on the net will tell you something different, from people who have done this.

 

cheers. i'll be in touch soon.

 

I have a 5.5kg flywheel on my 315PS car and on my anchor powered car 02A/J.
But I am not allowed to give my opinion.

 

the oe fly wheel shoud be balanced, and the full system is balnced checked too...SO in theory if you have a fly wheel lightened and then rebalanced it should make no odds, all it may do is change the harmonics of the system but its unlikey you will be entering the second order of resonance (im sure I read that the A series had a problem with with that was avoided, changing the displacemnt rings a bell)

 

heres a pic of mine on my 2e 8v (aprox 170bhp)in my mk2 gti,,,lightened on a lathe by jre race engines plymouth,not balanced,runs fine,,,well worth doing,>

 

New Modified Flywheel 3.16KG


New Modified Flywheel on the Left and Standard on the right.



Standard Flywheel Weight




New flywheel weight big weight loss.

 

I lost sooo much torks that I couldn't pull up the hill at Nurburgring. I had to drop into 2nd gear!


























Actually, no, it made the engine more free revving with no adverse affects. Lol!

Gurds

 

I have to say that JRE race engine should really be shot for not balancing it. The 020 flywheels usually require a fair bit of balancing to get them spot on due to the odd casting shape of the inside.
This is where it can all go pear shaped. An un-balanced flywheel can be detromental to the rest of the engine, plus if it let go, it could be nasty.
It may run fine, but it'll never run great, and I'd not be putting it the wrong side of 7k for long.

 

Everything has to be balanced for a good engine especially if your going upto 8k.

 

is this issue not that the machine shop is implying to balance it as a complete unit? i.e. attached to crank? rather than just lighten & balance the flywheel alone which they are advising against?

 

basically yes. but he also said that they would just skim the flywheel on a lathe and balancing was not needed.

 

Always needed.
Factory cranks are pretty good from the factory.

 

If you're building a road engine, then no integral balancing with the crank needed, it's fine.

If, say, it's Mountune, building a 1.8T for the Palmer single seaters, big bucks & revving to ~8k or more, then yes, they'd balance the lot. But these are full race engines.