My dealer quoted my $90 an hour, and 6 hours. I told him exactly what you said, and he said he was just padding it "Just in case."

They've never done it before (Stockton Mazda.) Anyone have an experience service department in NorCal, or even in the Bay Area? It would be worth the drive to me to get the piece of mind an experienced tech would give me.

cortc, do you think you could please let me have the correct Mazda part number for the Mazdaspeed lightened flywheel + counterweight so that I can run it past my local dealer here in the U.K. to see if he can get hold of it.
Thanks.

Thanks Rob.

It's a shame I didn't know about this earlier. The costs are very reasonable...

Prehaps - there will be shipping and quite possibly import duty on top of that.

Was looking into it as I need some clutch work doing anyhow. But I'm not bothering for now.

You can get it here in the states for about 525.00, call Rosenthal on the vendor’s forum they usually stock them...

I will look up the part numbers and post, in the meantime I have posted them in the past; try a search...

Would there be any labor savings doing the flywheel change when they are doing the recall for the MT heat sheild?

My heat sheild was backordered, and perhaps a few hundred bucks could be saved doing it at the same time.

Spazm. My dealer quoted me 80 x 5. They said that was padding it.

Replacing a M/T heat shield doesn't shorten Flywheel install labor times enough to give you much of a discount, surely not $200 bucks worth. It would surprise me if it mattered at all. At most the only things shared would be putting the car on the lift and dropping the exhaust. Now if you can manage to grenade your clutch under warranty....LOL.

Vernon

My clutch went out early last week with only 2600 miles. After discussions with Mazda they are covering it under warranty and installing a lightweight flywheel (supplied by me) for no extra charge.

The dealers are examining broken clutches closely for abuse--therefore be careful.

My car went in for the Mazdaspeed flywheel to be installed at my local dealer 2 days ago after I managed to procure the parts from Japan a couple of weeks ago. We agreed I would pay hourly upto a maximum of 5hrs labour. I still don't have my car back :(. Apparently my main dealer doesn't have the correct tools to do the job (but they started it anyway). They are short a 54mm socket. And they are having trouble getting one!! And 2 weeks notice obviously wasn't enough time to get this in :rolleyes:. Idiots. Anyway; a word of warning to all. Please make sure your dealer has one of these before they take your gearbox off!! :) Still, I'm looking forward to it being completed :D (but not the cost of the labour :(). Living in the U.K. can be a pain sometimes...

i love it now how do i convince my dealer to install it

hey toeknbrit you've recieved the flywheel pretty quick, I've ordered mine for like two months now and still haven't arrived :(. Where did you ordered it from?

Is it that tough of an install to do yourself? Doesn't it just involve taking off a few bolts and sliding the transmission back? Or is it more complicated than that?

IZoom-ZoomI, I ordered my Mazdaspeed flywheel from www.japanparts.com . It took less than a week to get to my door (but I am in the U.K.).

I have actually got my car back now. And I'm a little sorry to say that I hardly notice the difference at-all. The pictures of the flywheel are the same as that of CortC's. And according to the dealer the weight differences are minimal. I don't know if there is a different part fitted On U.S., and European models, But??...

Let's just hope that it's a case of restrictive exhaust not allowing the engine to rev up to speed as quickly as anticipated. I have a C.Z. Mid-P-4 on order, and I would like to think this will sort things out. Still; I can't stop myself thinking that I've just wasted a lot of money...

And GooOnYou, I think the install is a bit of a pig. Respect to you if you want to try D.I.Y., but please make sure you have a 54mm socket handy :D...

hmm thats strange usually lighter flywheels you do notice a difference with the driveability. It doesn't really make much sense since the mazdaspeed flywheel is quite a bit lighter than stock, unless u.k rx8's are different from american spec versions which i highly doubt ... from what I've read from a lot of respected members of this forum that the flywheel had a noticeable affect on their cars you're the first one that said there isn't any difference that is strange, any comments guys?

What can I say?? The Mazadaspeed flywheel was my 1st mod.
I'm just telling it the way that I feel it. I'm kinda bummed too :( ... I'm holding onto the hope that the engine can only run as fast as it can lose the exhaust gasses, and the standard midpipe/cat is restricting that. I'm probably wrong, but at the moment I'm trying to justify the cost...

Nah, you shouldn't have to get rid of the cat to notice flywheel gains.

Tokenbrit, was it made of Aluminum or steel? It's hard to believe that there was little wieght difference between an aluminum piece and the factory steel one. Speaking from personal experience you should have noticed a big difference if you got the right flywheel.

Vernon

I haven't weighed each flywheel back-to-back, so I don't know the exact weight difference. The Mazdaspeed flywheel did look exactly the same as CortC's tho. And I am guessing that there is only one Mazdaspeed flywheel available. The one that come off is cast (and ugly), and the Mazdaspeed one is 2-piece, and pressure forged (Chromoly for the flywheel I think - Steel for the counter weight).
I gave the garage my digital camera for some pics when they got the car. It shows them back-back. I will also take a pic of the Japanese Mazdaspeed info I got when the part arrived (maybe one of our Japan members can confirm that my Mazdaspeed part is the correct one :rolleyes: ). I will try and post these later (when I retrieve my download cables from a friend).

BTW, I haven't done much driving since the mod yet; but the difference I feel at the moment is NOT significant :confused: .

Right; I've now had a bit of a drive. Still not a significant difference I can feel while driving. There seems to be a pretty significant difference when the car is revved under no load tho (i.e. - in neutral). It revs much more nicer :) .
The stock flywheel also feels much heavier than the Mazdaspeed one did.
The part info I have been given by the shipper (www.japanparts.com) for the Mazdaspeed lightened flywheel set is Part No. - 091-013-011, Part Description - Mazdaspeed lightened flywheel set.

Surely there is only 1 Mazdaspeed lightened flywheel set in existance?? :confused:

Can somebody please put my mind at rest, and confirm I have just had the correct part fitted. :p

Here are some install pics. Please note both flywheels besides each other.

Honestly I don't know if there are two types of Mazdaspeed flywheels. In any case the one you put in is a big improvement over the stocker. The differences in reduced crank weight are most noticable in the lower gears where the engine revs up faster. In your end gears it would take a stop-watch and a measured distance to tell the difference. Reducing flywheel weight doesn't cause the engine to produce any more power, it only uses less of what the engine has always been makeing. The newly released power accellerates the car faster. But it's all a power constant with a wieght divided by time thing. Same power with less weight to move equals faster speed. The faster you try to move that wieght, as in the lower gears, the bigger the difference in wieght reduction.

If your Mazdaspeed flywheel is a lightened steel unit as opposed to a cast iron stocker, then you have a very strong flywheel that falls in the moderate wieght reduction range. This is good for a street car as it's bulletproof and easyer to drive in stop and go traffic. If you had used an aluminum part you would have maximum accelleration benefit with slightly more clutch slippage or throttle application to get rolling.

If there is only one Mazdaspeed flywheel and it's a lightwieght steel type then that makes your choice on flywheel replacement boil down to this, do you need to retain the Mazda warranty. Yes = use it. No = go for aluminum and get the most impact on your time and money investment. With a "super" light wieght wheel there would be no questions on its effectiveness. With the steel it's there, just not as dramatic. It all adds up though, don't turn sour on mods. No one mod made the fastest car.

Vernon

Thanks Vernon.

Retaining the factory warranty on the engine is kinda important to me right now. This is why I went with Mazdaspeed, and got it installed at a main dealer. And I didn't want the car 'too wild' as it is a daily drive. I WAS hoping for more 'bang' for my buck tho... :cool:

Still, my C.Z. Mid-P-4 (Random high flow cat and resonator) is on order. Maybe I'll get more joy when this arrives... Then it's FI. :D and Mazdaspeed sway bars. :D (not necessarily in that order :) )

Could somebody please confirm that I have the correct Mazdaspeed part tho. I would like to know for sure. :rolleyes:

The parts are correct, not only is it lighter but the mass is concentrated in the center... The MS unit weighs in at about 10.5 lbs most aluminum ones weigh in at about 9.5 lbs so the difference is not much...