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lighten flywheel - yes or no ?????

pvergon

Senior Member
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Seniores!!! como estan (how are you???) it's been a long time since i last entered the site and I'm glad to be back.

I need to know about lightening the flywheel, what do you guys think and if you think its worth doing.

for those in favour, is there any literature out there about how to do it? i have the enthusiast restoration manual in my hands but it doesn't explain how to do it or from where you can lighten the **** heavy thing.

it only mentiones that you can take out about 8 pounds, and that revington does it, but it doesn't explain how.

i will apreciate your help, and i have a TR4A by the way.

thank you and it's good to be back.

paul.
 
Hi Paul,

Flywheels can be lightened. Here are a couple of pics.
https://www.lunaticfringe.org/vwfox/mod/flywheel.html
https://www.racetep.com/flywheel.html

Be advised that improperly done flywheels can & do explode like hand grenades.

As far as the pros & cons of light flywheels I will leave the comments to someone else. There are a lot of strongly felt opinions about the subject. There is a previous flywheel question here:
https://www.britishcarforum.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000671
D

[ 01-28-2004: Message edited by: Dave Russell ]</p>
 
I've had the standard recommended amount of weight removed from my flywheel by a known rally/race mechanic that has successfully run this modification for years. (2500 S saloon with Injection)

I noticed no major difference in idle smoothness or loss of torque on hills. I cannot say that it felt faster but by gees it wound out faster to the redline in neutral and dropped back to idle a whole bunch faster than standard.

This improvement (reduction in rotating mass) has allowed much better double declutch operations and far more control for throttle blips between gears. In general it's a bit more active and I think easier to drive on 'the edge' than before.

Well worth doing - but don't use an amatuer or anyone with no experience on the triumph flywheels. Go with someone who knows exactly where to take the weight from. There's no point lightening the wheel if they take weight from prodominantly near the center as this does little to reduce rotating mass problems. Also for safety reasons they need to know where to keep it thick enough that it won't shatter and chop your feet away from your legs.

Be careful but confident that this is a worthwhile exercise.
 
Hola Pablo - Que tal? Hace mucho tiempo!

Glad to see you back in the fold.

Mickey
 
I say yes, absolutely, do it.

The flywheel in my 4 door Cortina is 14lb, down from around 22.

The idle is rougher, and it needs to idle a bit faster, although some other changes contribute to that condition.

It goes up through the gears noticably quicker, especially the lower ones.

At first it was much easier to stall it from a dead stop but we're past that now.

The good way outweighs the bad for my use.

Paul
 
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