Lightweight Flywheel Starting Sound

[byunique]

I just dropped in a lightwheight Flywheel, which I bought off Ebay. I had a shaved stock flywheel before, which weighed in at 16 lbs. The new one is billet Steel, 10.8 lbs (4.4kgs), made by Trust. It's working great and taking off 5 more lbs, was a worthwhile investment btw. Engine accelerates faster, and easier between gear changes...

The only thing is, when I start the car, the starting sounds of flywheel sounds totally different from the stock cast iron flywheel. I do accept the fact that the difference in metals and the difference in mass itself is going to sound different, but just wanted to get opinions from anyone else who may have gone through this. When I speeak of the starting sound of the flywheel, I am referrring to the sound which results from the meshing of teeth between the starter and the flywheel itself. It sounds really metallic sounding, almost like grinding of teeth. It's hard to describe, but if you want you can download the wav file here.

(186K, flywheel2.wav)

http://www.brandonyu.com/z/flywheel2.wav

When I first started the engine with it in, I was suspicious something was wrong, so I pulled out the starter looking for metal shavings on the starter teeth, but everything was clean. The starter itself sounds fine when starting de-tached from the flywheel.

What do you guys think?

Thanks.

[bob m]

Brandon

I have used aluminum flywheels in my car and they sound like something is wrong, like something is misaligned. I never had any problems with the flywheel and I like the sound better.

enjoy

Bob