Lightened Flywheel and New Life

[Omer F. Khan]

Hello all,

Since my '92 Classic has been downgraded to merely being a daily driver 
I haven't really paid much extra attention to it other than routine oil 
changes and cursing at it when something breaks.  About a month ago I 
started cursing again when the car ate it's fourth clutch disk in four 
years.  The hub breaks and then the spring flies out into the pressure 
plate and jars the whole thing up.  Apparently auto crossing every 
weekend is easier on the clutch than daily driving in Atlanta traffic.  
Two positives come from routing broken clutches.  1) I can remove the 
transmission in under 45 minutes including the time to park the car and 
get it up on the stands.  2) I can drive pretty good without using the 
clutch.  I once drove from Raleigh, NC to Atlanta with a broken clutch.  
It was fun.  I keep a paperclip in the car now to bypass the clutch switch.

The latest plate that broke was a B15 unit which I thought would be 
better than a Sachs or replacement Exedy like I had used in the past.  
This time I found a local clutch shop that built me a great looking 
extra beefy disk with a sprung hub for a very reasonable price.  He also 
happened to have a used Fidanza flywheel laying around which he let me 
have ridiculously cheap because the guy he originally sold it to hated 
it because of how hard the car was to drive around. It is an 8.5 lb unit 
(checked it on a scale myself).

Undeterred, I threw it in with the new clutch setup and have managed to 
put almost a hundred miles on it.  All I can say is that the 10 lbs that 
I lost on the flywheel feels like 200 pounds off the weight of the car.  
AMAZING DIFFERENCE!  It really feels like a completely different car.  
I've been stuck in stop and go traffic almost every day the last week 
and other than a very slight chatter on takeoff and having to give it an 
extra 300 rpm I really can't tell the difference as far as drivability.  
It is pretty easy to live with.  The biggest difference I have noticed 
is that the car definitely accelerates faster above 4k RPM and that it 
is a bit faster going up hills.  I'm enjoying the car so much now that I 
can't keep my foot out of it and I no longer care what gas mileage it gets.

The moral of my ever so long-winded story is that if you are bored with 
your old classic, don't despair, buy it some mods! Or at least give it a 
wash...1 lb of dirt is like 0.01 hp you know.

Now for a question, what was the last performance mod you guys bought 
for your Classic (or NX) and when?

Omer
'92 White SE-R
'99 Volvo S80
'93 Range Rover Classic
http://www.ohmfab.com