David, et al,
Well you may be almost correct on your asessment of the lightened flywheel,
BUT. I refer you to pp 382-3 of the 3rd edition of Vizard's A-Series book.
The effect of reducing rotating mass is real. However, if your car is
fairly stock it will be minor. If your car is already lightened and tricked
out it can become significant, especially in lower gears where the effect is
multiplied many times by the gear ratio. If it made no difference, the
racer sorts wouldn't spend big bucks on lightening engine internals (or some
of them wouldn't.) It's really a matter of degree and where you want to put
your money. An additional benefit is that the lighter flywheel moves the
reaonance of the crank/flywheel assy to a higher frequency which CAN put it
out of the rev rance normally encountered in daily driving and thereby
improve the life of your engine.
Your assertion that it will ease the strain on the synchros is not correct.
Because the synchros are doing their thing only when you are shifting (and
MOST of us depress the clutch while we are shifting) the lightened flywheel
is disconnected from the synchros. It might buy you some milliseconds
should you double-clutch for your shifts; however, double-clutching
probabally takes more time than just letting the synchro do its thing.
Unless those dang synchros are pretty shot.
Hal
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-spridgets@autox.team.net
[mailto:owner-spridgets@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of Frank Clarici
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 3:18 PM
To: David Lieb
Cc: Herby; Spridgets
Subject: Re: More Ribcase Q'
David Lieb wrote:
> Just remember, a lightened flywheel will NOT affect how quickly your car
> accelerates.
I have to differ on that statement David.
I have an aluminum flywheel, it's much lighter.
The engine revs up a whole lot faster with less mass on the crank, this
makes the car go faster, quicker thus improving acceleration.
Short of the Weber, it was the best bang for the buck in seat of the
pants performance improvment.
Now the rim flow valves didn't do squat and cost more than the alum
flywheel.
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