Stock MSP flywheel

[float_6969]

I pulled the trans to replace the clutch and the machine shop is telling me the flywheel can't be turned anymore. The clutch I pulled out wasn't a stock clutch, so it's been re-surfaced at least once already. I'm wanting to do this for as cheaply and quickly as possible. This is our only car that we can put the baby seat in, so we've been borrowing my mother-in-law's car for over a week now. I've done some searching, and from what I can tell, the stock MSP flywheel is lighter than the regular Protege flywheel. Is this true? If so, what's a good source for one? The local Mazda dealer isn't a Mazdaspeed dealer, so I can't get parts from them for it, and the closest Mazdaspeed dealer is 60 miles away. I know the Fidanza is an option, but that's over $300. We don't race this car, and don't have any plans for it to make lots of power, and it needs to remain easily driveable as this is our DD.

Anybody have any input?

 

[TheMAN]

no, it's bulls*** misinformation spread around by people who had bad reading skills more than 10 years ago
the MSP has the same heavy flywheel like any other protege... the only "protege" that had a lightened flywheel was the Mazdaspeed Familia that was sold in Japan back in 2001, it was the JDM version of the MP3... I have that flywheel in my car and it made a big difference... rev matching to downshift is much easier now... what they did was shave off the back side from the reinforcing ridge inwards towards the hub (but only about halfway to there to keep strength)... when I installed mine, I didn't have an accurate enough scale to weigh it, but some guy in Japan did this flywheel swap and weighed both his regular one and the MSF one... he said it's 1.2kg lighter than the stock flywheel, weighing at 7.4kg... that makes it just a little over 16lbs

it is now too expensive to buy the MSF flywheel... you're better off getting a regular flywheel and have the machine shop modify it for you! That's all mazda did anyway!
I dislike resurfacing flywheels on Japanese cars... they cause issues such as insufficient clamping force on the clutch... in fact, subaru does NOT recommend resurfacing a flywheel but I haven't heard anything from mazda about that.. so it is something to be concerned about... I only will buy new flywheels as they're pretty cheap anyway (MSF one isn't)

Fidanza flywheels are popular, but they're crap in terms of quality... after talking to engine builders, many have found that out of the box, they are very unbalanced and they had to take a few grams off to make it balance out!

 

[boubou22]

Do you have some price for the MSF flywheel ?

 

[agr99]

They skimmed 5mm off for the msf.personally. I wouldn't do it. Its weaker same for if you had a shop do it

 

[TheMAN]

if it really made it dangerously weak, why did mazda put it on from the factory on a car? oh maybe because their engineers OK'd it (screwy)

 

[float_6969]

I'm not worried about shaving it down. I have seen some HEAVILY lightened stock BP flywheels that hold together for countless hours of HARD road racing by a national SCCA champion that has the work done locally. We had the same work done to the flywheel on the wifes last NA and it saw redline more times than I can count, a bunch of drag launches (SOLO II) and it was never an issue.

IMHO, stock flywheel designs have more to do with cost and streetability than anything else. And for Mazda it would be a zillion times cheaper to lighten a stock flywheel than to build a whole new casting for a lighter flywheel. And as TheMAN said, I don't think it would have made it past the engineering/legal departments if it would have had any kind of reliability issue.

Thanks for the legit info. I can get a stock flywheel for $75 and I'll just have it lightened locally by the same shop that does the flywheel lightening for the national champ guy.

 

[destineal]

This thread has been very helpful.

 

[ScratchNSniff]

Have a few flywheels if needed...

 

[destineal]

you know I do

 

[mazdathe-best]

Ah another flywheel thread