General question... Say I take the flywheel off, empty it of grease, weld it into a single piece and then cross drill it to lighten it up. What would happen? I expect some people to tell me ignition problems when the dampers are removed, and some others telling me that the flywheel will crack. Then I'm hoping FBB will chime in saying it will all be OK as he's welded his and raced it for a long time. Does anyone have the theory behind flywheel lightening? I know that the rotational momentum is a function of mass, rotational speed and other factors - to save us from a physics and calculus lesson, is removing the 250 or so grams of kluber and all the internal hardware enough to give us a faster throttle response? I want to get my car to rev up and down much more aggressively than the relatively sedate set up which is standard out of the factory. Furthermore, I have made a sand (silica) mold of my flywheel. I made a tin/lead solid casting which I then "machined". This fit the car just fine. I didn't run it, just a conceptual cast. In the process I made a right mess of everything, but it was fun. I have a half idea to take the next cast I make to an aluminum smelter to see if we can make a few units to experiment with. I see they are a very unique item. And I expect a solid casting will be more durable than a welded unit... I now have a new job after 9 months out so I can afford to start experimenting again... Marco
FatBillyBob should chime in here soon. He welded his up, and tracked it, IIRC. He said it worked fine.
That was done to mine, ('91 348ts) it works fine, but at low RPM's and idle, (with the clutch engaged) there is a chatter noise from the spline play that is normally muted by the grease pack. Honestly, it irritates the crap outta me, and people are constantly telling me I have a rod-knock or a bad throwout bearing. If you're truly interested in doing this, i'd entertain the idea of just trading you! Mine was done correctly and professionally heliarc welded. The bad news for me is, it cant be UN-done.
Been there done that. No problems over 5 year racing. dropped about 6-8 lbs i forget. System must be balanced properly. You can feel the difference in acceleration out of corners but the driveability is still good. I never had any noise but I was racing and I did run straight pipes. It was an felt improvement which is about the most you can expect. Nothing blew up.
OK, I'll mace a couple of flywheel castings and drill/machine slots in their back side to lighten them up. I'll keep the orig so to be able to go back to stock. Sometimes, I wonder if I should just drive the thing instead of messing with it.. Pint will be on me Ernie... Marco
Bit of both, I'll rough cast, then machine... Don't know if I am going to bother, need to see what available time I will have, been out of work for a year, and now I am going back... Will be running the incubation business for a major software vendor, so time will be a premium...
