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We have been performing this service for more than 15 years without a single failure. It is an inexpensive and easy wake to wake up your Normally aspirated or Turbocharged engine.
The are no negative effects to lightening your stock flywheel unlike replacing it with an ultra-lightweight Aluminum flywheel. Most manufacturers make the stock flywheel very heavy. This makes the engine very smooth and enables it to retain energy at part throttle cruise and up long grades for better fuel economy.
An Aluminum flywheel goes completely the other direction with almost no weight. This lets the engine rev up very quickly and allows the engine to work easier due to the reduced weight spinning around on the back of the crank. This is fine as long as you are at full throttle and wide open throttle all the time like in a Road Race or Drag Race only car. As soon as you let off the gas the engine RPM drops instantly and the car slows down. In a road car this causes surging and bucking at cruise speeds and poor driveability and clutch engagement.
A lightened stock unit on the other hand gives you the best of both worlds. It is a compromise between the overly heavy OEM unit and a Too light Racing unit. You get the benefits of both with none of the bad qualities.
Turbo cars are exceptionally critical to flywheel weight. Too light a flywheel will make the car rev faster and possibly come on boost faster but that is only half the issue. When you let off the gas to shift the car will drop off of boost just as quickly causing a poor transition when you come back on the throttle.
We have found that a lightened stock unit will generally be 8-12 lbs. lighter than the original yet still give the driveability needed for street use. The Mitsubishi Starion is an extreme example of an overweight stock flywheel. They are 33-35 lbs stock. We lighten them down to 20-21 lbs with nothing but positive effects and no loss of strength or reliability.
All the weight is taken off the back side of the flywheel so the surface is still the same height and your clutch still fits and works the same. We try to remove the weight as much from the center of mass as possible and leave a ring of weight around the outside for better inertia. We keep the center hub thick for extra strength.
Examples of flywheel weights before and
after......
Mitsubishi
Starion 2.6 Turbo...35 lbs. stock / 21 lbs. lightenend
Datsun Z car 225mm...25 lbs. stock / 16 lbs. lightenend
Datsun Z car 240mm...28 lbs. stock / 18 lbs. lightenend
BMW 2002 215mm...18 lbs. stock / 11 lbs. lightenend
BMW 2002 228mm...24 lbs. stock / 16 lbs. lightenend
Datsun 240SX KA24DE 24-25 lbs. stock / 16-17 lbs lightened
Note...Due to their design we cannot lighten the Dual Mass Flywheel found on many late model BMW's and other European cars
