I made the statement about a balance job coming the OP way based on the the following impression I got: the crank is a reman with factory original balance of some unknown factory calibrated bobweight, rods are unknowns, from the factory they vary widely in what they weigh, the pistons are the more than likely the most consistent piece of the puzzle, +/- 2 grams of each other or less out of the box. I just looked at the collection of parts from "here", "there", and "else ware" and thought that a balance job would be a good idea
You are correct that it is not, a must do event to balance; I have assembled engines with out balancing ( what does a 400M ford know ), my mean teen experiment ( just to see what I could get away with, more than once bounced it off a 7000 rpm chip )........the OP is port matching, is/was concerned about his oil pump ( was pumping oil before ), people are asking about torque plates ( post 14 ), he is incrementally climbing the ladder to more performance, I see a balance job as one of the rungs of the ladder. Again you are correct it is not a must , gotta do event.
