Looking for info/experience on lightened flywheels.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Its something I'm considering but aside from hundreds of posts reading "It made the car faster" and the usual "might stall easier, worse for drag racing..." I'm not finding any hard data just alot of seat of the pants stuff.

Aka anyone done a back to back test on a dyno showing the differences? I know it doesn't actually increase HP, rather its just a lighter kinetic battery for the engine so more of the engines energy is actually being turned into mechanical energy.

The question for me is is it worth the $$$ over a stock flywheel.

I've only found a SINGLE article on the net with any kind of numbers, but its just a single magazine article and the results were kind of vague. They had a stock 04 Z06, previous to the flywheel swap it took the engine about 14 seconds to go from 2000rpm to 6500rpm in 4th gear on a chassis dyno. After the swap it took 11 seconds. Lightweight Flywheel Install Info - Tech Articles - Vette Magazine

Then they did the same test with a H/C/I vette but it only made about 1second of difference there. Which means yeah it seemed to help the stock car, but made not a whole lotta difference with the modded car.

Looking for some hard data, but having trouble finding it.

I'm not really into drag racing at all, its fun, but nothing I would mod my car to make it better at it. I'd much rather be making mods for HPDE/Auto-X and have been buying mods along those lines for a while.

Having my short block done and they need a flywheel on the car for balancing. I can either rip the stock one off my car in the freezing ass cold, buy a stock one for about $100, or buy a lightened one starting at about $450.

This would be for a H/C/I LT1 that hopefully will be living in the 420rwhp range but I won't know that till its all together and has a tune on it.

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[Pewter-Camaro]

I drove an LT1 Camaro years ago that had a lightweight flywheel and some small diameter road racing clutch. You had to rev it up more to get the car rolling and will want to stall a lot easier but that might have more to do with the Clutch than the flywheel. The car would rev crazy fast though. HP numbers I have no idea. I'm thinking it will not gain a whole lot of actual HP but less rotating mass will simply allow it to rev and accelerate quicker.

 

[Eagle]

Heavy flywheel = harder hit on shifts, but takes longer to hit a certain rpm when revving without load. Better for higher horse power setups.

Light flywheel = shifts lose some punch. Motor noticeably revs quicker without load. Better for small higher rpm engines.

This from experience.

Having dealt with a few builders on a few different engine/trans builds, I've always come out having heard to use the heavy steel flywheel over its lightweight friend.

 

[HILROD]

Simplified, drag cars or heavy cars use heavy flywheels. Light cars or road race cars use light flywheels. I put a light flywheel in a BMW for a guy He hated it and wanted it out ASAP. Also if you had a car with huge torque that wouldn't launch well the lightened flywheel would help.