Fidanza Performance designs and manufactures flywheels and clutch assemblies for high performance applications. With a history rooted in SCCA road racing, Fidanza has been producing power transfer products for over 15 years. In this video they give us a look into the manufacturing, engineering, and quality of their products.
In this time-lapse style video Fidanza takes us through every step of the manufacturing process. Starting with a computer aided drafting program, the parts and assemblies can be designed and engineered for manufacturing and fitment. Machinery tool paths are established and tolerances are established. With a raw blank of 6061-T6 aluminum or 2024-T3 aluminum chucked-up in a CNC lathe the flywheel begins to take shape.
Turning and boring operations give the flywheel its starter-ring step and center hole. Moving the aluminum disc into a CNC mill, live tooling and table dance around a specific set of G-code steps to choreograph the carefully spaced and bored holes for the later-installed friction plate. A little hand-deburring later and this aluminum plate is ready to assemble.
The 1045 steel friction plates are replaceable, and are bolted to the 6061-T6 plate with aircraft grade fasteners, and located with pressed-fit dowel pins. Applying a little heat to the starter ring expands the inner-diameter of the ring, and along it to drop on to the machined step in the aluminum plate, as the steel cools the press fit tolerance become an interference fit. Even with this thermal tolerance-tweaking, an end mill matches the blind bores so a washer and bolt assembly sits flush, clamping the dissimilar metals together.
After driving in a few locating pins with a mallet, the flywheel is ready for packaging and labeling. These hand-crafted parts demonstrate fine machining and manufacturing practices. If you need more information about Fidanza products for your ride give them a call, and they’ll set you up.