Which balancer?

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SSG_Karg

SSG_Karg

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I run a trick flow, mine is external, but you can remove the weight from it to make it neutral balance. Between $100-$200 IIRC
 
There is a real fluidamper either here or moparts.

There are only two dampers I'd buy. That's the FD or the Innovaters West damper.

I will never ever run a damper with rubber in it. I don't care who runs one. Rubber is a piss poor long term damper.

I am personally running a chicom FD knock off on my engine. I have a FD on the shelf for the W2 engine.
 
yellow rose said:
There is a real fluidamper either here or moparts.

There are only two dampers I'd buy. That's the FD or the Innovaters West damper.

I will never ever run a damper with rubber in it. I don't care who runs one. Rubber is a piss poor long term damper.

I am personally running a chicom FD knock off on my engine. I have a FD on the shelf for the W2 engine.
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How long has the chicom fluid damper been on there? Seem like decent quality?
I’d love an ATI or TCI unit but I just can’t see paying over $300 for a balancer that will never get spun over 6500 rpm.
 
SSG_Karg said:
How long has the chicom fluid damper been on there? Seem like decent quality?
I’d love an ATI or TCI unit but I just can’t see paying over $300 for a balancer that will never get spun over 6500 rpm.
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Been on there since 2015. I've used Fluidamper since I bought my first one in 1990 after an argument with ATI. With a bobweight of just over 1800 grams and a shift RPM of 8200-8300 ATI was trying to stuff an off try shelf damper up my ***. I wasnt buying that.

I've used them on almost everything. The only other damper I'd consider is the Innovaters West.

The big deal with ANY damper is honing the bore of the damper to have .005-.0010 press fit and that's it. My chicom damper came with .0031 press on it. Which is better than being loose. They can't make the bore correct for every crank snout so I'd rather hone the bore to fit.

BTW, when they first came out,and were braking snouts off cranks it was because they weren't being honed.
 
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Update:
So I pulled the trigger on the Chinese Fluidamper from eBay. It arrived today and although very poorly packaged for its weight, it seems to be without damage. I can’t tell if it is powder coated or painted. The numbers and lines feel like they were lasered on since I can catch my fingernail on the lines.
The pulley bolt holes are 5/16 fine thread and it weighs a portly 13.8 lbs according to my scale. It says Speedmaster on it.
Taking my rotating assembly to the machine shop later this week for balancing. I’ll report back with the machinists thoughts on fit and finish.

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yellow rose said:
BTW, when they first came out,and were braking snouts off cranks it was because they weren't being honed.
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So those were too tight on the crank snout? Something breaking during installation or in operation? Trying to figure out what would cause such breakage and why....
 
nm9stheham said:
So those were too tight on the crank snout? Something breaking during installation or in operation? Trying to figure out what would cause such breakage and why....
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The ones that were too tight split at the key way. And then it would slowly continue to fracture until it exploded. I've seen other dampers have that issue.

There were some that were too loose. IIRC there were some small block Chevy cranks that were made with BBC snouts. They has little to no press, and they were being used with stud and bearing mount loctite. Those were the cranks that had the snout break off.

All of this was documented back in the very late 1980's. I think it's funny that FD is still in business and doing work for many elite motor sports companies. They are even making dampers for cam shafts in certain applications now.
 
SSG_Karg said:
Update:
So I pulled the trigger on the Chinese Fluidamper from eBay. It arrived today and although very poorly packaged for its weight, it seems to be without damage. I can’t tell if it is powder coated or painted. The numbers and lines feel like they were lasered on since I can catch my fingernail on the lines.
The pulley bolt holes are 5/16 fine thread and it weighs a portly 13.8 lbs according to my scale. It says Speedmaster on it.
Taking my rotating assembly to the machine shop later this week for balancing. I’ll report back with the machinists thoughts on fit and finish.

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If you are going to internally balance, do NOT put the damper on the crank. Your machinist should know this, but some don't.

If you are going to externally balance, there should be a weight in the box with the damper. Use that weight. But never put the damper on the crank to balance.

Also, make damn sure the machinist measures the crank snout, and then the bore of the damper and make sure the press fit is whatever it says on the paperwork. Should be something like .0007-.0012 or close to that. Mine came with .0035 on it. If you don't hone the damper go fit, it will fail.
 
yellow rose said:
The ones that were too tight split at the key way. And then it would slowly continue to fracture until it exploded. I've seen other dampers have that issue.

There were some that were too loose. IIRC there were some small block Chevy cranks that were made with BBC snouts. They has little to no press, and they were being used with stud and bearing mount loctite. Those were the cranks that had the snout break off.

All of this was documented back in the very late 1980's. I think it's funny that FD is still in business and doing work for many elite motor sports companies. They are even making dampers for cam shafts in certain applications now.
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OK, tnx. I would never have thought of it splitting along the keyway... Murphy at his finest LOL! As for being too loose and using a bearing/sleeve retainer compound...yeah, that problem makes sense... the compound becomes part of the connection transmission path.. not designed to do that at all!

As for warnings, always, always torque the snout bolt to spec.. that clamping pressure is the ONLY thing that literally 'joins' the damper to the crank; the damper has to essentially become part of the crank to do it's job of damping.
 
Recently had a chat with a customer that had a Chinsezium fliud damper on his motor.
Found a little piece of metal in the pan on the drain plug magnet.
Sent me a couple pics, looked like one of the rollers from the timing chain to me.

He pulls the cover, sure enough that’s what it is.
And more than one are missing.
We discuss the possibilities about how that happened, and I mention perhaps the damper isn’t doing it’s job.

New ATI damper installed along with new timing set.
His son races the car a lot of the time.
After the first pass the son comments on how much smoother the motor feels.

Personally, we haven’t reached a point yet where I’m comfortable with a Chinese Damper(or Chinese rockers).
I just won’t put one on a motor.
 
I am running a Romac SFI . Seems like a nice piece but it has a polished finish and I never thought about how hard it would be to read because of the timing light reflection ! I wish it was black.
 
PRH said:
Recently had a chat with a customer that had a Chinsezium fliud damper on his motor.
Found a little piece of metal in the pan on the drain plug magnet.
Sent me a couple pics, looked like one of the rollers from the timing chain to me.

He pulls the cover, sure enough that’s what it is.
And more than one are missing.
We discuss the possibilities about how that happened, and I mention perhaps the damper isn’t doing it’s job.

New ATI damper installed along with new timing set.
His son races the car a lot of the time.
After the first pass the son comments on how much smoother the motor feels.

Personally, we haven’t reached a point yet where I’m comfortable with a Chinese Damper(or Chinese rockers).
I just won’t put one on a motor.
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That seems wierd. I've used several. One on the engine in the car now. On my cool stuff I always use FD brand. But this street crap I have used the chink ones. In fact, if I ever get my ducks in a row, I've got an engine on the stand that needs to be finished and it's getting one too.
 
yellow rose said:
If you are going to externally balance, there should be a weight in the box with the damper. Use that weight. But never put the damper on the crank to balance.
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I'll confess.... I am not getting the reason for this. How can one externally balance without the imbalanced weight (actually, the 'moment') being properly placed at each end? Is this simulated or 'computed out', somehow for some machines?

I've looked at several videos and this one shows the damper and flywheel installed in the crank balance process:
 
IIRC you cant balance a fluidamper as the silicon is a dynamic component. The housing and hub is rigid but the media in there is fluid. All are neutral without added weights. Thats what I heard from a balancer. ITs not that it will affect the overall balance, it will mask the real balance issue..something like that? Like slime in a tire, its 10oz of fluid silicon, but the tire doesnt go out of balance.....? My CAT fluid type balancer is probably the same balancer in chrome, heavy beast.
 
And FWIW: As I understand SFI certification, the Mfr submits some samples to undergo testing for a given SFI spec. Once the samples pass, then the cert is issued. As far as I know, there are not any follow-up checks with SFI certs; it is up to the mfr to maintain the quality.

FIA is different; once passed, then each mfr is subject to occasional checks on the mfg process and product. If they don't maintain quality, the FIA cert gets pulled. One racing seat mfr got all of their FIA certs pulled about 10 years ago due to this.

So, as I understand things (and please correct me if wrong), SFI parts quality can potentially vary over the life of the product with no real process in place to catch it. Basically, the design is SFI certified, but there is no running quality check process outside of the mfr.

My experience with the Chinese in other fields is that they will pass the test, and then do what they darned well please over the long term if no one is regularly holding their feet to the fire to maintain a standard. So how good any SFI part made in China is going to really be, IDK.
 
pishta said:
IIRC you cant balance a fluidamper as the silicon is a dynamic component. The housing and hub is rigid but the media in there is fluid. All are neutral without added weights. Thats what I heard from a balancer. ITs not that it will affect the overall balance, it will mask the real balance issue..something like that? Like slime in a tire, its 10oz of fluid silicon, but the tire doesnt go out of balance.....? My CAT fluid type balancer is probably the same balancer in chrome, heavy beast.
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Ah, OK, so this advice to not install the damper applies to a fluid-damper type? I did not catch that...
 
nm9stheham said:
Ah, OK, so this advice to not install the damper applies to a fluid-damper type? I did not catch that...
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Yes, FD type dampers only. It takes several hundred RPM's to center the inertia ring in the housing and distribute the fluid equally around the housing.

Most crank balancers use about 500 RPM and that's not enough to get the inertia ring centered.

FD does a damn good job of balancing the pieces before they go together. It's effectively zero balanced so it doesn't need to be on the crank when balancing.
 
Only reason I’m taking the balancer with me is so the machinist can give me his opinion on it and if he’s comfortable with it, then I’ll have him hone it for proper press fit.
 
Anyone have an issue with the aftermarket harmonic balancer being thicker and thus throwing off the belt alignment ?
 
The Trick Flow is thicker but is recessed where the pulley goes, no belt alignment problems.

Jeff
 
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