10 pound or 12 pound flywheel

[bongogocrazy]

I am going to be dropping my tranny today and pulling my clutch and flywheel. the tranny is already unbolted and just sitting on a stand holding it from falling. I ran out of time friday to drop it.


I am looking to get F1 stage 1 clutch. And I would like to do 10 or 12 pound flywheel. one person here said to take to machine shop and have weight reduction done to it, but a friend said that would make the flywheel weaker. I was wondering what your guys advice is on this.

should i go ahead and find a machine shop? should i just leave it at stock 22 pounds. or is there somewhere i can get a 10 pound or 12 pound flywheel?

I can get my stage 1 clutch with pressure plate, disk, bearing, alignment tool all shipped for like $120-$130 I believe it is.

[Honda_like_it]

Go to a machine shop and get weight taking of it. The are no negative effects to lightening your stock flywheel unlike replacing it with an ultra-lightweight Aluminum flywheel. Most manufacturers make the stock flywheel very heavy. This makes the engine very smooth and enables it to retain energy at part throttle cruise and up long grades for better fuel economy.
A weight reduction flywheel goes completely the other direction with almost no weight. This lets the engine rev up very quickly and allows the engine to work easier due to the reduced weight spinning around on the back of the crank. This is fine as long as you are at full throttle and wide open throttle all the time like in a Road Race or Drag Race only car. As soon as you let off the gas the engine RPM drops instantly and the car slows down. In a road car this causes surging and bucking at cruise speeds and poor driveability and clutch engagement.

[stat1K]

12 is my vote

[MessyHonda]

no one that I know makes 12 pound flywheels for us. I took my stock flywheel to a machine shop and they told me that they could only take about 5LBS off and it was going to be 150 bucks to lighten, resurface and balance. I went to clutchnet and i bought a 9 pound aluminum flywheel for 280(2007). I never really noticed the light weight besides its harder to take off with a stronger clutch

[Strugglebucket]

the lighter the better as long as you have the skill to drive it. slow reving engines drive me crazy.

definately won't be able to get a stock flywheel down to 10lbs though.

[rjudgey]

flywheel lighter the better but if it's the stock one just lighten it as much as possible, howmuch is the machinist going to charge you for this? Something else worth considering is picking up a 2nd Gen accord/prelude flywheel which are lighter than stock as the cars were lighter than 3g accord and then have that machined, my one weighs only 10lbs and is very strong, my machinist did an excellent job on it and said he could have taken out a couple more lb but would have cost more as it was already labour intensive!

If you go to myspace and look at my engine photos last couple are off the flywheel, can't seem to get the image box to come up at the mo will look at it later when I'm home.

[Dr_Snooz]

Sorry, newb question. Why are flywheels so heavy generally? What do you lose by lightening it?

[YK86]

Sorry, newb question. Why are flywheels so heavy generally? What do you lose by lightening it?


It was kind of answered by the 2nd poster but it's all about inertia. The heavier flywheel takes longer to get up to say....3000rpm BUT the inertia from the weight of it helps to keep it stay around the same speed. On a lightened flywheel, it'll get up to 3000rpms faster due to less weight but it will drop just as fast as soon as you let off the gas.

I have a lightend and balanced oem flywheel in my 4th gen. Mine was 19lbs stock, down to roughly 13lbs. For me, it's perfect. Revs noticably faster while still being able to pretty much drive it like a stock car.

I have also installed a 8.5lbs Fidanza in an H22 and although it wasn't bad as I was expecting, it does require you to rev match, shift at a higher rpm, or be really quick with the shifts when daily driving.

For example, if you normally shift at 3000rpms, it'll probably be around 2500rpms when you finish shifting with a stock flywheel. With an 8.5lbs flywheel, it'll probably closer to 2000rpms or maybe even less if you were to shift just like a stock flywheel.

[Dr_Snooz]

It was kind of answered by the 2nd poster\

Yep. Just saw that. Sorry.

[rjudgey]

It's just one of those things that once your used to it it's not so bad! But they do suck if you are stuck in a really bad traffic jam with constant stop start or slow driving at 10mph or less, you tend to get it bunny hopping which you can cure by dipping the clutch a little, but generally pulling away has to be a little bit quicker than normal as really easy to stall if you don't have enough gas, leave yourself plently of room between car in front. If stationary no issue as will just sit their idling happy! lol! If you had a super heavy car i think this would be more of an issue but if your car is pretty light e.g. like a hatch or aerodeck that's been stripped out or even a coupe should be fine on super light flywheel, mine at 10lbs is pretty perfect happy with it and way it drives. Just wish it could rev a little higher! lol! These Teg gears need all the revs you can get!

[Hondamonster]

I had a 12 lb in my prelude. (stock was about 23) and absolutely loved it. If you know how to rev match and stuff, there's absolutely no downside.