Hi all: Many moons ago (2003 ish), I drove a Dino with a very, very light flywheel (a Tilton 5 inch carbon fiber model). It was beyond amazing, except of course it was difficult to launch. I ended up buying that same car more than a decade later, but the owner had put a standard flywheel back in the car for drivability. There certainly are flywheels in between stock and too lite. I have a lightweight flywheel (steel not aluminum) on my 66 eType and it transformed the car with no downside. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I am an advocate for light flywheels as well. My experience is with the 3.3L hot Merak SS engines I build as I've had a number of alum flywheels fabricated and installed now. The stock Merak SS flywheel weighs some 20lbs, whereas the aluminum units weigh 9lbs. Significant difference in willingness to rev and I personally have not noticed a big difference in launch from start but that is likely a driving style thing. A lighter flywheel doesn't change the output of the engine, it only changes the amount of mass it has to rotate, so it gets more power to the ground. Same could be said for using lighter wheels. A heavy flywheel has its purposes and I well understand when they are used from an engineering perspective, but for cars like these I have not noticed any downsides. The race engines Ferrari/Maser from this era used alum flywheels of course The fabricator I use in California: LSCperformance.com They will probably need your ring gear from your flywheel.
The racing Stratos used a light weight flywheel and they have been reproduced. I thought it's main benefit was about faster shifting a close ratio gearbox. My GR4 has the light flywheel and a AP clutch with copper type friction pads. Still works fine on the street. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Superformance lists a light weight flywheel on their site but I think it is for a AP type twin-disc clutch. I think it would work on a normal Dino but I would ask Superformance to be sure.
The complete "Swiss Cheese" flywheel and clutch are available from Roberto Cassetta in Italy. You can have a less extreme custom flywheel made by TTV Racing in the UK to work with the standard single plate clutch. I went the latter route on a spicy Dino engine that I am currently building.
