I hear everywhere, when you change your flywheel to a lighter flywheel, it is not going to give you more power but will help the engine revv in the higher rpm faster.
Well, help me clear something. To me, compared to a stock car, when you climb the rpm’s faster (given the same engine, same setup but different flywheel) it means you’re accelerating faster and accelerating faster means more torque, more power.
Its difficult to me to understand that 10lb less on the flywheel will make a difference in the power output, but in theory, wouldn’t that be true?
But, the jist of it is. With a lighter flywheel… there is less rotational mass thus it will spin up faster. Thus, the revs climb quicker. Which is good to create power etc.
However, with a heavy fly wheel there is more rotational mass. It takes more effort to start… but once it’s going the rotational mass will allow it to continue with momentum. (still following).
Now, the general idea is with vtec/short-geared tranny setup have a light flywheel is good because you want the revs up fast to engage vtec and the short gearing means you don’t drop as many revs as you shift.
However, with stock ls… or turbo… you don’t want short gearing because you want to maximize the time your turbo is spooling if your consistently changing gears because of short ratios your boost is not always very consistent. Now, a heavier flywheel is good for this occasion because on a stock ls motor as you shift ,the gears are a lot longer and your revs drop more, having more rotational mass means as your clutch disengages the flywheel will continue to rotate (more so then the light flywheel) and as you re-engage your clutch (after a smooth shift right :P) that extra rotational mass will give it more oomph from the lost revs because of the long ratios.
But… having a long geared car where your dropping revs alot with a light flywheel that doesn’t have as much rotational mass is not ideal. It all depends on your setup. With vtec you would want a lighter flywheel… but stock you want the extra rotational mass.
That help? search and you’ll find that’s usually ppl will recommend against an overly extremely light flywheel for ls motor.
oh and that’s just one example on gear shifting… but you can think of anytime when your car uses rotation to generate power… which is alot of the time.
Yes I did read alot on the subject. What you are explaining here, is about the effect that the rpm will drop faster. But if you make quick shift, ls or vtec, it won’t matter.
that is one of the biggest misconceptions in the industry…longer gearing will not make a car faster becasue it is staying in boost. the longer you stay in boost spool means you are accelerating slower. its simple math. short gears propel you faster, end of story. lastly, a lighter flywhell on a vtec or non-vtec motor will accelerate faster than an oem one. a lighter flywheel is harder to launch, but, the good outweighs the bad.