has anyone had their stock flywheel machined for less weight?

[Accordtheory]

I don't really feel like dropping more bills on an aluminum flywheel, and I know that the lighter the flywheel, the less each power pulse is dampened before it reaches the drivetrain, so I don't want the lightest possible flywheel, (long term durability) just one that's light enough to not break shit when I shift. Anyone taken their stock flywheel to get lightened at a machine shop?

[Strugglebucket]

i'm not sure if anyone on here has lightened a stock flywheel. but, i do remember that you can use a flywheel from a 2nd gen prelude with the 1.8 carbed engine. it is a few pounds lighter but you will need a different clutch, so it's only cost-effective if you were planning on replacing the clutch anyway.

[Justin86]

yea you can do it, but if you take off too much people say that it will crack, but i have never seen any pics of a cracked one. There is a lot of material that could be moved a good 5lbs or more.

[mykwikcoupe]

I think the lude one is actually smaller in diameter so your losing the weight and the rotation mass on the outside. Downfall is amount of area the pads have to grab.

[rjudgey]

tricky, theirs a few tweeks i can tell ya, the 1.8 lude flywheel is the one to get, you can get an ally version as well as the flywheel is the same used on 1g/2g prelude/2g Accord/1stgen Teg, because of this their are many aftermarket clutches available, as with the size it's a 200mm disk but could actually take a 215mm from a 3g accord if you find the right pressure plate, i have noticed that some pressure plates are sized to cover everything from 215mm to 200mm but some are only 200mm. Their are some excellent stock pressure plates and disks out their, the Nippon pressure plates are rubbish, the DK plates are mid range, AP and LUK are very good, but i think LUK may have stopped making them and now sell the DK under their name like Clutch masters and ACT which both use DK plates, also exedy use DK plate too, their discs though are very good but make sure you get a disc with 8 support beams to the disc with at least two rivets on each one, also preferably spring loaded rather than solid rubber cylinders.
The advantage of using the smaller flywheel, is that the clutch is quite light, but hte flywheel can be made even lighter, mine is shaved to the max and so far has done 30K without any probs, it's not as light as an ally one but it's not too far off, helps the engine spin up very quickly and the only downside seems to be having to rev the engine a little harder in traffic or at the lights to pull away otherwise it's easy to stall or bog down especailly with twin weber DCOE's!! You get used to it i use it on the road without too many problems, and also most good clutches are good for upto 200bhp and 180lbft maybe a bit more, but depends on weight of car, if you have a really heavy car with sounds and stuff then probably take less power to slip or break, but if your car is coupe or hatch and has no heavy stereo, or even better has been lightened a little, then should be fine!! Mines never slipped. Also BTW i'am using an AP pressure plate (by far the best) with Nippon sprung organic disc, seems to work well lasted 15K so far, broke clutchmasters stage three at 15K and that cost me 4 times as much!!

[bobafett]

excellent post man. theres a lot of good info right there!

[AccordEpicenter]

wow... all that from a noob... This is a good thread. I love my aasco 8.5lb flywheel... Theres only soo much material you can take off of a flywheel before it becomes unsafe, so dont go nuts.

[rjudgey]

well when you break them every couple thousand miles you tend to find out what works and what doesn't!!
not that new just don't often come here i'm like Seans equivalent on the 2G prelude forums, but i like to keep an eye on what your top guy's are upto and share and help anyone that needs it!!
The main weakness that i have seen in a lot of the pressure plates is that the thin metal straps that hold the cast iron plate in position aren't strong enough, most only have a small amount of material around the mount or they only have two on each mount holding them in place, the AP pressure plate though has three on each point and their three mounting points holding the plate in place. This seems to last far longer and also the pressure on the AP plate seems to be quite hard, not had one slip yet, bought a proper Pukka Nippon one from Japan and it slipped so badly i think even a mildy tuned stock motor would have slipped!! Shame as it looked promising but the driven disk was very good although it only had six mounting points but they were very substantial and well made with big springs. The best setup would be AP plate and a ACT 6 puck solid disk a little harsh in traffic but you could just leave a bit more space in front of you. Clutchmasters although very nicely made i think are not worth the money that they cost ACT or centre force are better value but not tried the CF or seen a CF yet?

[AccordEpicenter]

Ive heard the most good things about clutch masters although they arent soo cheap. Act seems to be decent but ive heard alot of bad things about centerforce. I personally run a ClutchNet 6 puck copper ceramic sprung hub on an 8.5lb Aasco aluminum flywheel. I had clutchnet make (yeah they made it for me) this pressure plate with 2 layers of spring steel (dual diaphram) and its got a heavy pedal, but i feel its very streetable and very tough (should hold well over 350lb ft, overkill, for now anyway). I had a Spec stage V 3 iron puck unsprung and it ate itself in 600 miles, and it was very unstreetable. The pp mounting points are reinforced 3x and it seems like a very high quality clutch (i already have 2500 miles on it at least) i paid like $380 but you can get it cheaper with an unsprung 3 puck disk (or 4 puck,6 puck, organic, fiber/carbon button, kevlar, ceramic button, sprung or unsprung) they dont come with t/o bearings so i just used a koyo one (who cares) but i felt the 6 puck with a heavy pp load would be a perfect high abuse longest lived streetable combo for a big power increase


Edit: Yeah my DK clutch was ok for stock but ive had it slip occasionally when trying to burnout in 1st (ghey)

[Accordtheory]

Strangely enough, my car actually used to have the prelude clutch/flywheel combo. (and the prelude tranny, too, which was garbage) The stock 2g prelude flywheel is ridiculously heavy, especially compared to a b series flywheel, and is noticeably heavier than the stock 3g one..and when you consider the smaller diameter of the disk that goes with it, the result was a clutch that I could just burn in 2nd and up.. Anyway, as far as the clutch itself goes, Sean already hooked it up, telling me about the custom "accordcentral" clutch from Spec. It is a billet pressure plate with if I recall correctly, a 2600lb clamp load, and a full face sprung organic disk, perfect for a high powered street car. Since I have to stick with the accord style flywheel to use this clutch, and I haven't been able to talk to Dave Norton at Spec about this flywheel shit yet, I thought I would ask here first. If he doesn't have any particular recommendation, I guess I'll take my flywheel down to a machine shop whenever I get around to doing all this, and then let you guys know what I end up doing with it.

[AccordEpicenter]

yeah high clamp load pressure plates is where its at. That sounds a hell of a lot nicer than my spec stage V. I dont know about you but my stock 3g flywheel was heavy as shit

[rjudgey]

hmmm you sure it was off a 1.8 carb lude and not a 2.0si? The SI had a heavy flywheel with a bigger disk, my 1.8 flywheel is really light?

[Justin86]

yea that set sean was offering was pretty good over 500tq holding with a 8lbs flywheel, but most people were scared by the $1000 price tag, but it aslo isn't you typical street clutch

[AccordEpicenter]

big clutches=Big money

[buzzbomber88lx]

wow... all that from a noob... This is a good thread. I love my aasco 8.5lb flywheel... Theres only soo much material you can take off of a flywheel before it becomes unsafe, so dont go nuts.

heh....thats what happened to me..I work in a machine shop and went crazy and shaved off what i thought was a great amount and burnt the hell out of the flywheel and it worked great but was flimsy with all of the material I took off. Now I run a 9lb fidanza

[AccordEpicenter]

wait you got a fidanza for an a20? Or is that a B series? Yeah if you remove too much material they are explosion prone. I played it safe and went for more weight reduction with the aasco but all at a price of $400 and it took me a month of calling around and shit for them to send me the RIGHT flywheel

[Strugglebucket]

i had the same problem trying to get the correct aasco flywheel. finding performance parts for an a20 is full of trials and tribulations.

[buzzbomber88lx]

wait you got a fidanza for an a20? Or is that a B series? Yeah if you remove too much material they are explosion prone. I played it safe and went for more weight reduction with the aasco but all at a price of $400 and it took me a month of calling around and shit for them to send me the RIGHT flywheel

"cough" I dont have the accord anymore "cough"
this is for my w58

[Justin86]

what about drilling the flywheel to loose some weight? I can easily do this at home.

[buzzbomber88lx]

what about drilling the flywheel to loose some weight? I can easily do this at home.

prolly throw burrs and mess up the surface finish that the flywheel needs to catch...also will prolly warp because the flyhweel gets hot and that will release heat unevenly

[keruhas184]

You always want to make sure that the finished product is perfectly balanced. I'm not sure how accurate you can be with drilling holes. One has to remember, unbalanced flywheel spinning at 5k rpm = busted clutch/tranny.

[buzzbomber88lx]

You always want to make sure that the finished product is perfectly balanced. I'm not sure how accurate you can be with drilling holes. One has to remember, unbalanced flywheel spinning at 5k rpm = busted clutch/tranny.

wouldnt really bust the tranny and clutch, but all it would do is grind like bad synchros

[AccordEpicenter]

id bet id take a toll on the bottom end if its wildly unbalanced

[2ndgenludedude1986]

yep 1.8 2nd gen lude flywheel from a et2, or a18 motor, an clutch is lighter.

[rjudgey]

do not ever drill a cast iron flywheel for weight reduction it will shatter and make a huge mess, only steel flywheels can be drilled, CM do a reasonably priced Flywheel but you would have to convert to a Lude 1.8 clutch as well.