easy power gains from gti 16v

[MotorPsycho]

If you're gunna lighten the flywheel prepare to lose intertia and you'll have to be much betetr with choise of gears/rpm matching

Also if you lighten the flywheel you will need to re-balance the crankshaft and flywheel assembly, so you might as well knife edge the crank while you're at it

Or you could just leave it alone and enjoy what is a pretty decent car.

[DubSociety]

If you're gunna lighten the flywheel prepare to lose intertia and you'll have to be much betetr with choise of gears/rpm matching

Also if you lighten the flywheel you will need to re-balance the crankshaft and flywheel assembly, so you might as well knife edge the crank while you're at it

Or you could just leave it alone and enjoy what is a pretty decent car.

Wow, and I was just thinking, thats what i'd DEFINITELY do if my clutch ever decided to die on me.

So is it a completely different drive? need to shift much quicker? and get used to a completely different style?

[Ess_Three]

If you're gunna lighten the flywheel prepare to lose intertia and you'll have to be much betetr with choise of gears/rpm matching

And?
Changing gears is no different...you just loose more revs between them as the engine slows quicker...you may stall more easily when pulling away from a standstill...that's the main drawback. There is still a flywheel there, so you retain some flywheel effect.

Also if you lighten the flywheel you will need to re-balance the crankshaft and flywheel assembly, so you might as well knife edge the crank while you're at it

Utter rubbish.
The crank is balanced to some degree independantly from the rest...so is the flywheel.
You can lighten the flywheel, re-balance it and re-fit it without touching the bottom end in any way.
It's been done for years...no issues.
VW engines are not dynamically balanced as matching sets at the factory...so you aren't upsetting anything.

[Ess_Three]

Wow, and I was just thinking, thats what i'd DEFINITELY do if my clutch ever decided to die on me.

So is it a completely different drive? need to shift much quicker? and get used to a completely different style?

No, no and no.
It'll be more likely to stall if you don't give it enough revs when pulling away, it'll drop speed more quickly between gears so you'll not want to take an ice age to change gears...and it'll pull harder through the gears...takes all of 5 minutes to get used to it.

[MotorPsycho]

Of course you CAN do it without doing the crank, but I'm from school of if you're doing it, do it properly.

I'm a professionally trained engine builder and have spent a lot of time balancing cranks, you'd be massively surprised how much a modified flywheel throws a crank out of balance and a properly balanced rotating assembly makes a huge difference to the general 'happiness' of the engine, bearings live longer and friction is reduced, everything opperates more smoothly and quietly.

It's up to you, but I'd always do the full package if I was going to mess about with engines.

[Ess_Three]

Of course you CAN do it without doing the crank, but I'm from school of if you're doing it, do it properly.

I'm a professionally trained engine builder and have spent a lot of time balancing cranks, you'd be massively surprised how much a modified flywheel throws a crank out of balance and a properly balanced rotating assembly makes a huge difference to the general 'happiness' of the engine, bearings live longer and friction is reduced, everything opperates more smoothly and quietly.

It's up to you, but I'd always do the full package if I was going to mess about with engines.

Lightening and balancing a crank is a LOT more work that doing the flywheel...and gives less gains (VW cranks aren't *that* bad as standard).

Ripping the bottom end to bits is a whole different job to removing 6 bolts and changing a flywheel.

You can buy a flywheel and fit any suitable flywheel to any engine...so they aren't a matched set...lightening a balanced flywheel only reduced the effectiveness of the flywheel.

Can you explain how a non-matched crank/flywheel pair can be thrown out of balance by lightening one of the two bits, assuming the bit that's been lightened is re-balanced independantly afterwards)?
That's like saying if I lighten my crank, my flywheel will be out of baslance.

I don't get it?

[thai-wronghorse]

Personally I can't understand how a properly lightened and balanced engine component such as a flywheel could ever be detrimental to it's running seeing as you'd reducing the amount of off axis inertia energy which would obviously cause issues and increased wear.

[Len]

I'm with Ess 3 here as I cant see how balancing a flywheel with thorw the crank out of balance, assuming it was "in balance/normal tolerance" before!

[thai-wronghorse]

Couldn't agree more Ess-Three

[Paul86S2]

As been said there is no need to lighten and balance the crank as well. I had over 3kg's taken off of my flywheel and have had no problems with it. Hotgolf who lightened and balanced my flywheel said he hasn't found a standard one that is anywhere near balanced yet.
Differant makes of clutch pack all weigh differant so on that basis you should get the whole lot balanced every time you change your clutch 
I have not had any problems with stalling or pulling away yet and as previously said it takes all of 5 minutes to get used to the change. The idle characteristics change slightly with a lightened flywheel and if you have aircon it will idle slightly higher than before with the aircon on.
As far as changing gear goes you will find no problems with everyday driving or driving on the track, it picks up so much quicker that the slight drop in revs between gear changes is outweighed by the quicker pickup.

Paul