Ford 5.0 aluminum flywheels?

Thinking about an aluminum flywheel for my 331. Any recommendations?

Fidenza

don't. unless you've got a ton of extra torque and have it geared really deep.

He has plenty of torque and I've run them on rotaries without issue, unless you plan to tow...

Nope, track car. Won't be doing any towing. The Fidanza came up on Summit. Unfortunately their cheap one, at $317, was for early engines with 164 tooth flywheels. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FIZ-186511/

Any idea how much a factory 5.0 Mustang flywheel weighs? I know, "take it off and tell us" .

No idea of it is true but found a post claiming 16.5lbs

http://www.brothersperformance.com/p-4623-1986-95-ford-mustang-50-fidanza-aluminum-flywheel.aspx

Jegs has 13.5

http://www.jegs.com/i/Fidanza/383/186501/10002/-1?parentProductId=755918

Summit says 13.5 for the Fidanza 186501 too. I was wondering about the stock one. The steel ones from FMS are listed from 21-25lbs+. Nice that the 186501 can be either externally or internally balanced.

I have used several aluminum flywheels with the steel face, in race cars, never had a problem in any of them, the engine responds so much quicker that I have found them to be well worth the effort

I had a fidanza Al fw with a steel friction insert and steel starter teeth on a chebby and I was very happy with the quality and performance. Had some metal drilled from the balance pads, machine shop did not need to add any weight. I remember using locktite on the pressure plate bolts and the fw bolts differed from the iron fw bolts but fidanza included them.

Good luck!

novaderrik wrote: don't. unless you've got a ton of extra torque and have it geared really deep.

why do you need extra torque and deep gearing? I have driven a lot of cars with light flywheels.. all 4 cylinders and never had a problem

mad_machine wrote:

novaderrik wrote: don't. unless you've got a ton of extra torque and have it geared really deep.

why do you need extra torque and deep gearing? I have driven a lot of cars with light flywheels.. all 4 cylinders and never had a problem

4 cylinder generally have deeper gears, and to me a 331 is a small engine with little torque..

i always look at things from a driver perspective, and a heavy flywheel makes the car maintain speed better on the road and accelerate smoother from stops and what not. the OP didn't say what the application was, and i just assumed "street".

But a 331 is a stroked 5.0 V8, should have a big fat torque curve unless you are comparing it to a 7.3 diesel, BTW who mentioned 4 cylinder?

novaderrik wrote:

mad_machine wrote:

novaderrik wrote: don't. unless you've got a ton of extra torque and have it geared really deep.

why do you need extra torque and deep gearing? I have driven a lot of cars with light flywheels.. all 4 cylinders and never had a problem

4 cylinder generally have deeper gears, and to me a 331 is a small engine with little torque.. i always look at things from a driver perspective, and a heavy flywheel makes the car maintain speed better on the road and accelerate smoother from stops and what not. the OP didn't say what the application was, and i just assumed "street".

I think I see what you are saying now. The "deeper" gears allow the lighter weight flywheel to spin faster, quicker.. were "taller" gears it won't see the advantage due to how much slower the engine revs up in gear.

I have only ever driven one v8 with a manual (when I was learning to drive) so I can't comment on how well a big engine responds to a light weight flywheel, but it always seemed to me that lighterweight helps everywhere, on every engine, except for smoothness and vibration

aussiesmg wrote: But a 331 is a stroked 5.0 V8, should have a big fat torque curve unless you are comparing it to a 7.3 diesel, BTW who mentioned 4 cylinder?

to me a 331 is a small engine, with matching smaller torque..

Actually, this car has an RX7 Turbo II diff - 4.30. I was thinking of seeing if I could put a 3.90 in it. When I had this engine in a Mustang I drove it with a 3.73.

That car weighed probably 100 pounds more than this one will and had truckloads of torque. One of my friends described it as "explosive".

novaderrik wrote: i always look at things from a driver perspective, and a heavy flywheel makes the car maintain speed better on the road and accelerate smoother from stops and what not. the OP didn't say what the application was, and i just assumed "street".

I never noticed a difference. Then again I drive rotaries, maybe V8s are different

Scratch that, I did notice one difference. A heavy (26b) flywheel makes it easier to drive a bridge port in the sub-2000rpm range because it keeps the brapbrapbrap from hammering the drivetrain so much. A light (~9.5lb + counterweight) flywheel makes it more noticeable. The heavier flywheel also allowed me to drop the idle down to ~900-1000 more easily, instead of ~1300.

That said, I'm still going to drive bridge ports on the street, and I'm still going to use an aluminum flywheel as long as I have the right counterweight. And I'm still going to upshift at around 2k-2500 on the street, 'cause that's how I roll.

All the horrible things people said would happen with an aluminum flywheel never happened. Just like all the horrible things people said about a bridge port never happened. Gotta love innernet knowledge...

Wow, I just took the flywheel off of my engine. It's been sitting so long I forgot what's on it. It came out to 12 pounds-ish. One more thing I don't have to buy.