RS Motorsport :: Classic Speed Restored

Hey folks,

I need to get my hands on a lightweight stepped flywheel for a 184mm clutch to suit the pinto with 9 bolt YB crank pattern. I see a couple of UK firms do them for a reasonable price, does anyone have any good or bad reports on the burtons ones in terms of hardness, heat management etc?

Otherwise does anyone know where I might get one in Oz for less than an arm and a leg? (been quoted no less than about $700 for a custom one)

Cheers,
Llewellyn

Try Mike Dale Automotive in Adelaide. He supplied my steel 6 bolt fly wheel. He may have them in 9 bolt

The pommie ones are too heavy

My AP flywheel is just on 3kg' how does that measure up?

JP

My complete clutch and flywheel with ring gear is 4.87kg's

Thanks for the suggestion Steve but no luck there.

Danny, I assue you had your custom made here? i'm getting the impression that it's an off the shelf pommie one or get one custom made here. Anyone have any recommendations for somone who knows their stuff for a custom made one in OZ?

Otherwise another option to the Burtons ones is the one by Turbosport which they advertise as being 2.4kg without ring gear, which seems plenty light enough for me. Afterall I really just want something good that works and still makes me feel like i'm making improvments on the car as I go, I don't actually think for a second the weight of any flywheel I run is going to make me an any better driver or really help me win any races.

What Danny is getting at is any method of reducing the weight of your rotating assembly is a good thing, reducing inertia and reciprocating stresses on your crank and bearings. Keeping your clutch weight down would be cost comparative i think to building and balancing a knife edge crankshaft.

I personally wouldn't bother with a knife edged crank especially if it's a modified standard crank as it can cause major issues wit balance and bearing wear if if not done correctly as windage can push the crank in one direction and then theres the issue of only using a partially counterweighted crank which can have uneven harmonics over the length of the shaft

Hi all,

Just an update for anyone who may be interested in a competition flywheel in the future.

I went with an off the shelf flywheel from TTV Racing in the UK. It was half the price of a custom one made here and came to my door in about 4 days.

I looked at a few of the ones manufactured over there and this one seemed to be the lightest one available without moving the clutch pad right up against the crank face neccesitating release bearing fuss/modification and possibly allows for maybe one face grind in the future.

It came fully balanced and ready to go, no need to fit a ring gear either.

If you do some googling for flywheels over there you'll pull up only a handfull of ones off the shelf, a number of different companies re-sell this exact flywheel which they source from TTV, they all ask alot more than buying direct from TTV and TTV were very helpfull too and they seemed to get good reports on their products on some of the other forums.

Anyway, time will tell i guess as to the quality.

It weighs 2.8 kgs exactly which coupled with my AP paddle clutch weighs a total of 5.6kg..... which is still too heavy for Danny i'm betting

They also do them in 6 bolt if anyone is interested.

Llewellyn

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looks great. Very nice. Have you got a link for TTV?

What are you building the car for?

Cheers,

Matt

Looks pretty, but it doesn't look like they heat treated the ring gear

Matt,
TTVracing.com is the mob, I see you like in the UK?? I got the impression that TTV are more of an engineering firm that tend to sell their products only to trade. living in Oz I got the impression exempted me from this but they were very helpfull so i'm sure they can help you one way or the other. And the car is being built for a number of things, mostly sprints, hillclimbs and just general tarmac usage. Haven't got a huge chance to use it yet, been spending most of my time with it fixing previous peoples "errors" since I bought it, of which the flywheel/clutch is the latest.

Danny,
I too did wonder about the teeth, they assured me that the whole thing was machined out of a pre-hardened cromoly billet (although they wouldn't specify which grade) and the teeth were hard enough. Like I said though, time will tell. If all does work out then i'll be glad I went with the integral teeth as doing it this way will still be lighter dynamically than something of similar weight machined to take a seperate gear.

If it turns out a fail, i'll let you know but i'm hopefull from what I have read from others experiences with their flywheels.

Llewellyn

Good stuff, hope it all works as it should.

Cheers

Matt

P.S. I am in Melbourne Vic.

Sorry Matt, don't know what I was looking at that gave me that idea

Lew there isn't a chr-moly that's hard enough really and the harder (denser) the material the slipperier it is for the friction material on the clutch plate. What they do now is use a softer type steel like a 4130 etc and then harden the ring gear section

good food for thought Danny, and unless they hardened the rim of the billet prior to machining the teeth then I would say they haven't had any heat treatment afterwards from the looks of it. Ill remember to ask if I ever have anything more to do with them in the future.

Positives are it was still was less than half the price of a custom made one and I wanted it quickly (4 days). Although I sliced my finger up pretty good cutting pumpkin the other night (adding pumpkin to my list of arch enemies), so I may be waiting a while anyway.