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So another area I'd identified for improvement on the car is the clutch and flywheel.
As standard the F355 ran a dual mass flywheel, probably one of the earlier applications on a high performance car. The two elements inside the DMF are torsionally damped by some sprung elements, but also by a special Kluber grease. The cars are notorious for problems when the grease has either liquified from a gearbox oil leak from the 'triple seal' on the transfer shaft, or solidified through absorption of dust and other debris.
In order to avoid these issues on my 2nd hand 'box (and because I spotted room for a very significant weight saving) I decided to switch to a traditional single mass, lightened flywheel, with a sprung-centre paddle clutch (the standard F355 friction plate is not sprung as it is assumed the DMF does all the torsional damping).
I also swapped out the F355 solid transfer shaft for one from the Ferrari 348 which is gundrilled from both ends and 30% lighter.
The flywheel and clutch were provided (with great service) by MD Clutches (link on my links page). The flywheel is completely custom and nearly 50% lighter. The sprung clutch is adapted from a Ferrari 360 unit.
The pressure plate and all the clutch release gubbins are carried over, and I swapped in some Ti bolts for added intertia savings on the pressure plate.
The total weight savings look like this:
| Old (g) | New (g) | saving (g) | % | |
| friction plate | 1163 | 1919 | -756 | 165.0% |
| M6 bolts | 88 | 45 | 43 | 51.1% |
| shaft | 1828 | 1292 | 536 | 70.7% |
| flywheel | 10700 | 5726 | 4974 | 53.5% |
| pressure plate | 4658 | 4658 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 18437 | 13640 | 4797 | 73.98% |
I also put some work into the clutch cover. I'm becoming pretty blasé to taking an angle grinder to Ferrari components now, which I'm not sure is a good thing!
Anyway another 250g saved and I'm very pleased with how it came out. :-)
Overall 5050 grams saved. 4800 of them rotating mass, and all of them hung out behind the rear axle!
