I know that the balancer on my truck has slipped the rubber a little. I hooked up the timing light the other day and it said my initial was at about 25BTDC. My total was somewhere around 50. I set it back to 12 initial and it would barely idle. Top end was cut way short too. I set it back to where it was and I could not hear a ping anywhere no matter how hard I tried and it ran great. I know that at 50 it would have to ping if it was right. Anyways. When I had my crank balanced the guy said he had to drill a little out of the balancer because he couldn't take it out of the crank due to journal being the spot where he needed it to be taken out. How do you guys balance cranks? Is it done all as one unit or what? I would figure you would zero balance the crank the balance the flywheel to zero and the damper the same. I did a lot of research before I chose the guy. A lot of the racers down at the track swear by him and if you ask anybody where to go they say to go there. He hardly took anything out of the balancer but would it hurt to run a new damper? Right now its so smooth I'm pretty sure I could set a glass of wine on the motor at 5 grand and it wouldn't move. I was thinking of a fluid damper or some other SFI approved deal. Sorry for the novel.

 

Rat, I'm wondering just what your balance guy is up to here.....probably just lazy. I like to see an engine balanced 'in the pan'. Some engines come from the factory with out of balance flywheels and dampers, like 410 and 428 FEs, and all of the 302s. Proper procedure, IMO, is to leave the damper and flywheel alone ( so they can be swapped if needed ) and balance things on the crank. Your guy may have found it expediant to have taken some off the dampner instead of doing both ends of the crank. It is still balanced just fine, but now if you replace the dampner you have to have your new dampner matched to the balance of the now modified original. I like the idea of using a new SFI approved dampener. I don't know if I like the fluid filled jobs or not. I kinda think not (just my opinion). Did you know you can use a nice beefy 429/460 dampener with a little work ? DF

 

When I had my engine balanced I had to supply my balancer and flexplate and everything was balanced together.

Of course if the crank is balanced, the HB is balanced and the flexplate/ flywheel is balanced it shouldn't matter if you swap out individual parts right?

Josh

 

When I said I wanted it balanced he said he needed the pistons, rods, rings, crank, damper and flywheel. I was aware that the 460 damper would work by shortening the spacer. I think that would be the way to go. I'm going to have to talk to him about it. I would have to have a nice shiny new damper drilled on to make it work. I hope he plans to make them the same balance for free! What is a good damper for the FE? Not looking to spend 400 bucks on something rated for 5000 rpm more than I am turning (6500).

 

Rat-
I just bought a re-built damper from the DamperDoc at http://www.members.aol.com/damperdoc (why doesn't this show up as a web address?) for $49.95 exchange, and it looks like a good "do", and very fast turn-around! Haven't quite got my 410 together yet to try it out, but hope to within the week. Waiting for adjustable rockers and to see if my Sanderson's can be salvaged.
Steve