[andy669]

I had the honor of participating in a steel vs. aluminum flywheel test just last week. The test was sponsored by Clutch Masters and Fidanza flywheels. The one and only David Vizard was there to do the article for MM&FF. I would imagine the article is probably 5-6 months away from press.

The test consisted of chassis dynoing and track testing both steel and aluminum flywheels in a NMRA Factory Stock, Real Street, and Pure Street car.

We dynoed all 3 last Wednesday morning with the steel flywheels, then went to the track for testing. After making several passes to get 3 good baselines, we swapped out the steels for aluminums.

The Pure Street car was having trans problems and therefore was not able to continue. After swapping in the aluminums, several passes were made to get at least 3 good baselines on them. Thursday morning the cars were returned to the chassis dyno to make pulls with the aluminums.

The preliminary results were this. The Real Streeter picked up an average of 20 rwhp on the dyno. The Factory Stocker, just 5. Track results were a different story. Since NMRA Factory Stock is a Drag Radial class, the F/Ser picked up big time et! The heavy steel flywheel was hitting the tires too hard and blowing them off. I dont remember the exact et#'s the cars picked up because I did not choose which 3 runs were used for baselines. But i know the average was 2-3 tenths on the F/S, and 3-4 tenths on the R/S.

The F/S car weighed in just over 3300, and the R/S car was just under the NMRA 3250 minimum (with ET streets) at 3160. Although these results were obtained with dedicated race cars, they can be translated directly to street cars with silimiar combos.

Andy