http://www.iwsti.com/forums/engine-power-performance/103953-how-balanced-you.html and http://www.iwsti.com/forums/vendor-.../76165-ar-fab-exclusive-harmonic-dampers.html These were both interesting to me since I will be pulling my motor this week and having Doug, Scott and the boys at TopSpeed build it for me.
Yeah, but Howard makes a pretty good case for them. I was especially interested in the crank findings. Just makes you wonder how far some builders actually go when "balancing" your rotating assembly.
The funny thing is Howard makes it sound like he is doing something special but he really isn't, he is just balancing the motor, He is doing the same thing any other machine shop would do. Most machine shops balance slightly beyond the factory RPM unless requested, if you tell them you want it balanced to 10000 rpms they will be happy to do it for you. I'm not totally sold on the Harmonic Balancer on a built motor that has been balanced...however I'm not opposed to it either, I'll probally pick up an ATI dampner when it comes time to spin a motor over 8000 rpms.
I gathered out of what he wrote, that he has torn down some motors from other builders that were supposed to balanced and they weren't. That's sort of the scary part. I think it was a beware of what you pay for more than anything else.
LOL, I'm not saying he is lying but it would be in his best intrest if you thought others weren't balancing there motors and he was. I don't know Howard or his business practices but I do know he wouldn't be the first "SUBARU" engine builder to lie.
Bleh. It all needs balancing. Period. There are real engineering reasons behind everything. I could list bunches of lots of truckloads of engineering between an 2 similar subaru engines and blah blah. Point is: if you are going to build an engine...dont just build it...engineer it properly, THEN build it. Otherwise, you are wasting your time.