RKD in OKC

You women drivers want all that ultra smooth easy driving stuff, go get a luxo mobile with an automatic and that oh so responsive torque converter.

When I got my car it had a lightened knife edge crank, lighter pauter rods, factory pistons and ALUMINUM flywheel. I never had any problems rolling off in 1st gear...even on hills. Just rev it up and go, it's a sports car. The only thing I had to adjust too was shifting quicker to match rpms because it reved down quicker on the shift lift. But hey, I LIKED that!

Same on the 2.8 with the exception of a stage 4 composite solid puck clutch. It made it a little challenging at first to keep it from bucking a little as it engaged, but that was just because the engagement on the pedal was only about 1/16 of an inch of travel. Never killed the motor as the "lack of inertia" theories suggest. Heck, it even idled smooth at 840 rpm with the A/C on.

Oddjob

"an object in motion, stays in motion...." some classical Newtonian physics/dynamics. The heavier flywheel will resist changes in momentum, moreso than a lighter flywheel. So it takes more torque to get it spinning, and once its spinning it will not want to slow down as much, either. But this does not increase or supplement the engine's power output. It will show up when the engine idles down in neutral. So, when you lift off to shift, going through neutral, the engine rpm will drop faster with the lighter flywheel. The heavier flywheel will maintain more engine speed/rpms. Same when blipping for heel/toe - the lighter flywheel will rev up quicker/higher with the gas blip, but it will also drop down quicker.



The pressure plate is also a big mass, so the combined weight of the flywheel and pressure plate is probably 30+ lbs. We are talking about taking 5-8 lbs off the flywheel, which is really only reducing the flywheel/PP assy by approx 20%. So, although its noticeable, its not a huge change to the overall inertia. And I agree with RKD, that a lightweight flywheel in a 944 should not cause much driveability issues.

Some of the cars with dual mass flywheels, 964s in particular, have more issues with 1st gear stalling when using a LWF, because the dual mass flywheel is something around 30 lbs, and the factory Carrera RS/Cup single mass flywheel is 5-10 lbs - so they are dropping around 20 lbs, which is a more dramatic change.