Post
by rfs1957 » Mon Aug 17, 2020 1:55 pm
In the proportions we are discussing here, the flywheel material is irrelevant.
A flywheel only ever acts as a reservoir of energy, to smooth out spikes in demand ; it stores, but cannot create.
Excuse the pedantry.
Any crank/flywheel combination, whatever they are made out of, requires a supply of energy to overcome the friction of their own bearings, and the friction of all the other attendant rotating parts, when running on tick-over.
Which is why the engine consumes fuel when idling.
The increased friction caused by the thrust bearings will, in fine, require more power, and normally this means - with the throttle pedal left untouched - that engine revs drop by a modest amount with the clutch pedal depressed.
The only effect of the flywheel's mass is to determine how long that drop in revs takes.
It can have no effect on what those revs drop to - unless, in the extreme, they drop so low that the engine requires a heavy flywheel to carry the crank between firing points, which is a different issue.
The scale of the issues - never mind the racket - you are facing point to massive drag somewhere, and I'd lay a penny to a pound that it's 1) major and 2) not the flywheel.
Rory
3.8 OTS S1 Opalescent Silver Grey - built May 28th 1962