[DeTomaso] Steel vs aluminum flywheel

[Ken Green]

Jack,
 
   I have heard a number of times about Larry Stock's 3.2 gear ZF and the problems, but I'd have to know what cam he ran and if he had a big carb on the motor to draw any conclusions.  I'll have a cam that turbos like, which should make good off boost low RPM torque, and EFI that will provide the right amount of gas.  Unless Larry's engine was a low RPM build with a small carb, I don't think his experience applies to my plans.
 
    This is for a long term project, second Pantera, so it will be quite a while, but I think it's worth trying.
 
Ken


________________________________
From: "JDeRyke at aol.com" <JDeRyke at aol.com>
To: kenn_green at yahoo.com; detomaso at realbig.com 
Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2012 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Steel vs aluminum flywheel


In a message dated 2/7/12 21 18 39, kenn_green at yahoo.com writes:
>
>   I have a new McLeod steel flywheel (which I think had a removable 28 oz balance wt), and a new Hays aluminum internal balance flywheel.  One will hopefully eventually go into a twin turbo street motor, looking for about 800 FWHP and using 3.2 gears.  I was thinking that the steel flywheel would be more forgiving with these gears, although when I ran a Dynomatio simulation, my motor would have twice the torque at 1,000 RPM of a normally aspirated engine with a big cam and carb due to the cam the turbos like, so I think either flywheel will work well on the street.
> 
>    Any thoughts on this?
>
>Personally, I'd go with a 3.77:1 and your steel flywheel. Virtually any aftermarket flywheel is better than an iron stocker behind a highly modified engine. But your problem is not gonna be the flywheel weight. That's a Bonneville ring & pinion ratio that should allow an easy 200 mph. Larry Stock tried one a few years ago in his Silver State car that he drives on the street, and he lost two clutches around town (one a heavy duty) in a couple of months. The flywheel needed resurfacing both times from excess slippage trying to get moving, before he gave it up as a bad idea even with a 400 ft-lb 351-C. That gearset would work with a megatorque big block or maybe a supercharger set for low end, but not higher rpm turbos.... Jr Wilson ran an even lower-ratio R & P behind his 572" monster-block and it was useable around town but was reportedly twitchy & hard to control in the lower gears. His partner (also a Pantera owner) crashed it on the street once & took
 out two parked cars while simply going a few blocks for gas. 
>FWIW, Larry still has that low mileage 3.2:1 ZF all polished and ready to go for a good price; saw it last week. Good luck either way- J Deryke
>