re: Flywheels

[Thomas Washburn <thomasw@domain.elided>]

Jorge <jmazl@domain.elided> wrote:

> In other marques, such as B**mers, they put a lot of emphasis
> in using light weight flywheels to decrease mass drag (inertia),
> same principle used to "sell" the concept of lighter gears, as
> in Merrit Carden's "Gear Lightning".  You may give up some
> possible iddle stability, but, is there any gain?

The gain is faster engine acceleration.  Of course, the whole
>purpose< of a flywheel is to increase the angular momentum of
the crankshaft assembly.  If the minimizing angular momentum
was the goal, the flywheel could be eliminated entirely and
replaced with a lightweight pressure plate.

To make the car lighter, one could increase the flywheel dia-
meter and reduce its thickness, or otherwise move more of the
flywheel's mass to its outer circumference while lightening the
part as a whole.

The gears, on the other hand, are disconnected from the engine
at idle by the clutch, and thus contribute nothing to idle
stability.  They should be as light as is practical, to give
the synchromesh less work to do.

- - Tom
thomasw@domain.elided

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