| Name | Post |
| Bogomili | I need to resurface the flywheel on a new 2.0 rebuild I'm doing and I'm considering lightening the flywheel at the same time. It seems like a relitively inexpensive way to get more zip around town. A very good VW machine shop here in Orange County (RIMCO) will do the resurfacing and as for the lightening, they asked "How light do you want it. Just give us a weight (min. weight they gave was 12.5 lbs.) and we'll take it down that far". Can anyone comment on how much is too much? Can anyone who has done this tell me what results you've experienced? What are the potential drawbacks to lightening a flywheel? |
| JP Noonan | Check out the "914 Lite" web site. The guy races a 914 in some sort of stock class and has striped the thing down to about 1700 lbs. with a 200 hp 2.4 or 2.5. The site describes how much was taken off the wlywheel and even has a cross section of the before and after flywheel. The way I understand it a lightened flywheel dose not add any power to the car. It does however allow the engine to reved up much quicker to get back into the power band. It is descirbed as much quicker around town. The only down side I can think of is that it "may" be easier to stall, and that a cast iron flywheel with less mass will heat up faster and might blue,crack, or warp more than a stock one. Much like cross-drilled cast iron rotors. The ones I've seen are 7.5 lbs. for racing and are about $550 outright I assume. I think there was a 10-11 lbs. one for street for $350? |
| Dave_Darling | Somewhere I heard 8.5 pounds as a hard lower limit to 914/four-banger flywheel weight. I don't remember where, though. A light flywheel will make the engine eaiser to stall. In fact, some 911 motors have problems stalling when the clutch goes in if the flywheel has been lightened significantly. --DD |
| Brad Roberts | My experience with lightened flywheels has ranged from full race too nice street.I
recommend no lighter than 12 lbs on the street,sure it makes the engine rev quicker, Brad. |
| Bogomili | I took the flywheel to RIMCO and the head machineist there said it is usually not a good idea to go below 14 lbs for street for machining reasons rather than performance considerations. I'll have the engine run in driveable by mid June so I'll post my impressions of it's drivability and performance gains then. Thanks for all the good replies I got! Matt |