Aluminum flywheel = 50 more hp . . . right!

[Mike Arman]

One of our vendors - and I'm not going to name him because he really IS
trying to support our older Audis - is starting to, or thinking abut
starting to produce aluminum flywheels.

He claims that switching to an aluminum flywheel will result in as much as
50 more HP at the wheels.

Sorry, but that's not right. What an aluminum flywheel will do is let the
engine rev up more quickly, which will make the vehicle "peppier" and it
will SEEM that it is making more horsepower - but it really isn't.

I have an aftermarket aluminum flywheel in a 1968 BMW 500cc motorcycle - it
is less than half the weight of the stock cast iron one (9 lbs vs 23 lbs, I
think), and the motorcycle is definitely peppier and more fun to ride, but
isn't much faster in acceleration and no faster at top end. And it is not
as smooth as stock, and slightly harder to start.

Yes, it does take a finite amount of horsepower to accelerate the stock
flywheel, and somewhat less than that to accelerate the aluminum one, but I
have a real strong feeling that the nice, round, impressive sounding " ADD
50 HP!!!!!!" claim is right out of the clear blue sky.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and if you could pick up a whopping
50 hp on a 150 hp car just by lightening a few rotating components, well
even team doorhandle would have picked up on that by now.



Best Regards,

Mike Arman