aluminum driveshaft and flywheel

I've heard guys gaining a tenth or 2 from an aluminum flywheel. Its also lighter so it'll be LESS wear and tear on your shortblock. I bought one for my street car, but its not running yet. Send a PM to Joes95GT and ask him how he likes his aluminum flywheel in his street car. I don't think its cost effective to pull your tranny out just to put a new flywheel in, but if your changing your clutch, go for it. I bought a Fidenza aluminum flywheel and it comes with weights for 28 and 50 oz incase you evere build a stroker down the road. I dont think their cost effective for you now, but they certainly won't hurt you. have you though of buying some 373 or 410 gears?

King cobra clutch is a nice clutch for a street car. I had it and it was fine and pedal pressure was good. Smart man, wait until you do the clutch to install the fidenza aluminum flywheel. I'd do a new rear main and pilot bearing too. 3.55's are a decent gear, i'd bump it up to a 3.73 personally.

Over the weekend i just installed a king cobra clutch and an aluminum driveshaft. I will say that i love the clutch, it grabs very hard, but as for the driveshaft i cant say how much it helped because i have never taken my car to the track. I saw in some earlier forum discussions that an aluminum driveshaft helped someone gain 3 rwhp, so its not much of a power adder. The reason that i bought the part was to get rid of all my drive line shaking, which it did. I have 3.73 gears and my shifter did shake at highway speeds, but now it is very smoothe.

Tha aluminum driveshaft really takes care of drivetrain vibration. When you put in a higher numerical gear it requires the driveshaft to spin more rpm for each tire revolution. Therefore, it amplifies any imperfection in the stock d/s. I run a billet fidanza and love it. I decided to steer clear of the aluminum for a street car after doing a lot of research. You will lose low end torque and stop and go traffic will become hell on wheels. Good luck. BTW - check out the McLeod clutches before you buy anything.

If I'm thinkin' right, since the main difference between the steel and aluminum parts is weight, the aluminum parts will let your engine get to its power band (rpm) quicker, and easier, resulting in more HP to the ground. I'm not sure you would be able to tell on a street application, unless you were consistant in your 1/4 mile times.

GTJAMMER

I can say that besides the great effects it had on my vibration, it did seem to help my acceleration response. Seems that my tires turn over even easier since i installed that driveshaft, but i cant forget that the clutch is playing a part in that as well, because my car was slipping pretty bad before last weekend.

Both are definitely worthwhile and will make some difference. How much, and if it's worth it or not probably depends on your setup. Mostly stock the flywheel is probably not worth it, but the DS is if you have lower rear gears.

Agreed. I find the lightweight flywheel to be a pretty big rip off. I did replace mine when i changed my clutch but it was with a stock part. Im not paying 300 bucks for a part that is basically only good for bragging rights.

The aluminum flywheel will help you decelerate quicker and accelerate a tick quicker if you want that little extra addition but some things to think about with the AFW is starting from a stop, particularly on hills, may require more slipping of the clutch to make up for the lower momentum than is stored in the heavier stock flywheel. Some jerking can be occured due to the loss of momentum possibly in between shifts for example as the rpm will drop sooner.

I would stay away from an aluminum flywheel on a daily driver and plus some of the harder grabbing clutches can tear up the aluminum flywheels...and aren't recommended with a aluminum flywheel.

Get a stock replacement or a nice billet steel one...(more expensive)...

This is posted from FastDriver - The answer to your question is that a 15 lbs weight would be easier to catch/stop if it has been thrown at you at the same speed as a 40 lb weight. A pretty obvious answer, but I think you are misinterpretting the results. A drag racing launch has nothing to do with ease of launch. If it did, you wouldn't launch at 6500 rpm, you'd launch right off of idle. Also, my clutch doesn't seem to have any problems grabbing my flywheel at any rpm. My tranny doesn't seem to have any problem managing the shock, and with the right tires and suspension, I will launch this car right off of redline with a single clutch drop.

The point is that you want as much stored energy to jump into your tires as possible, and you want your suspension/weight distribution/ tire combination set up so that it can handle all of the power and effectively put it to the ground - as opposed to wasting it by blowing away the tires.

In regard to your posit about stored energy being meaningless, I'll counter that stored evergy has everything to do with the difference between a heavy flywheel and a light one. In fact, stored energy is the only cause of a performance difference between an aluminum and iron flywheel.

The aluminum flywheel does not store as much energy as rpms increase which gives it an advantage in that the energy that would be stored in the flywheel has instead been exerted into the rotational force in the drivetrain and hence the driving force/power of your car.

In drag racing, that extra stored energy in the flywheel at a stop is put into your tires as soon as the clutch is dropped causing more force/power driving your car as it leaves the line. As your car moves down the track and rpms increase, the energy is transferred back and forth from the flywheel to the tires as rpms increase and then decrease (as you shift). Finally, when you cross the traps, rpms at the top of their powerband, the stored energy in the flywheel did not get put to good use. So, the advantage after you leave the line is to the lighter aluminum flywheel. Does it make up for the Iron one? Possibly. The longer the track, the more likely. However, will the difference be significant enough to justify the extra expenditure? Not to me.

I didn't notice any difference (maybe a bit less vibes thru the shifter) when I added my aluminum driveshaft.

Grn92Lx - When did you have a King Cobra clutch? Or are you talking about the pressure plate you had?

I've heard that an aluminum flywheel isn't all that great for the street because it doesn't hold RPM as well with shifting or something to that effect.

The alum flywheel can have some undesired characteristics on a street car - not sure I would do that.

As everyone said, with gears, the stock DS's imbalance can be more pronounced as the DS gets closer to critical speed. always a nice upgrade there.

a lot of guys put down a LOT of power through stock flywheels. They are 100 bucks or so new.

good luck.

Exactly, an aluminum flywheel is a good idea...I would skip the aluminum flywheel.

Not many have them on their daily drivers with no complaints. Some with daily drivers other than their aluminum flywheel spun cars don't have to many complaints with them...because they have another car to fall back on.

The stock flywheel will do you just fine.

Also when you put in some bigger power numbers the aluminum flywheel's surface can get "skuffed" compared to a billet flywheel when you run a stronger clutch disc material in which you would need with bigger horsepower numbers.

BaXTeR3221 said:

I've heard that an aluminum flywheel isn't all that great for the street because it doesn't hold RPM as well with shifting or something to that effect.

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For me, that has only been a problem if I take more time to shift than a Civic getting to 60mph

I have a Fidanza alum flywheel and an aluminum balancer. It took a few miles (about 1 week) to get used to the new setup. It revs up really quick. But after that, it's like driving a stock setup.

runningmole said:

For me, that has only been a problem if I take more time to shift than a Civic getting to 60mph

I have a Fidanza alum flywheel and an aluminum balancer. It took a few miles (about 1 week) to get used to the new setup. It revs up really quick. But after that, it's like driving a stock setup.

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Nice to hear some experience in this thread I can't wait for my Fidenza 28oz flywheel for my street car.

I know Joes95GT posted his heavy convertable was EASIER to accelerate from a stop after his aluminum flywheel swap. Hopefully he'll repond with some more REAL experience.