Flywheels (Was:Re: RS2 turbocharger)

[JShadzi at aol.com]

Yup, that sounds right, its all about inertia.  One thing that lighter flywheels don't give you is smoother clutch action, without the inertia of a heavy flywheel, revs can drop very quickly necessitating more throttle to get the clutch engaged - for example Le Mans cars and other race cars, though part of that is the extremely high gearing.

Javad

In a message dated Mon, 10 Jun 2002  3:18:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Nate Stuart <newt at newtsplace.com> writes:

>That sounds awfully backwards to me. A hevier flywheel will 'contain'
>more energy, and take longer for that energy to be bled off by the
>compressions in the cylinders and frictions in in the engine. A lighter
>flywheel can 'contain' less energy, and bleeds it off much sooner, so
>the revs drop faster.
>
>Spin a 50 pound tire on a hub and stop it with your hand, then spin a
>bicycle tire and stop it in the same fasion, you'll get the idea. In
>generall a lighter flywheel will get the revs up and down quicker at the
>loss of 'smoothness' where the heavier ones will take longer to rev up
>and to drop revs, but they smoothen out (slow down) rapid changes in torque.
>
>Hmm, hope I got some of that right.....
>-Nate
>'89 90tq
>www.newtsplace.com/90tq
>
>