Harmonic balancer/dampner

[tfeverfred]

Has anyone ever heard of running just the center piece in a OEM harmonic dampner on a SBC? My buddie says you can because SBC's (except the 400) are balanced internally. He says guys sometimes do it to save weight?

Any thoughts?

 

[Tbucit]

In short Fred No, because then it would not dampen. That is what the rubber is for to reduce the harmonic caused by the rotation of the engine. For me a general rule of thumb about this type of stuff is to think this way, if Detroit (or any place where the design cars) can get away with not putting something on the car they will.

Randall

 

[RPM]

I just run a hub on the blower motor, but they say that is fine and the blower belt acts to cancel the vibrations.

Year ago on the old 283 they did not use a balancer but just a hub. as the strokes got longer they went to balancers and they got bigger as the power went up. The hi horsepoer 327 and 350 ran an 8" balancer.

You won't notice any gain from not running a balancer on a street motor and you run the risk of breaking a crank.

So your friend is right but!

 

[MDANIELSON55]

ran dirt foryears and when we lost the ring on the balancer motor shook bad so id say run stock or a fluid mike

 

[Baby Huey]

Well, For all out RACING, lets say DRAG RACING, All we ever used was a degreed hub, there was never a rubber ring or a weight. This was an injected Chebby Small block in a rail...
Street engines better have a dampner, or a rubber crank, one or the other.....LOL "BH"

 

[tfeverfred]

Well, For all out RACING, lets say DRAG RACING, All we ever used was a degreed hub, there was never a rubber ring or a weight. This was an injected Chebby Small block in a rail...
Street engines better have a dampner, or a rubber crank, one or the other.....LOL "BH"

That's probably what he meant. In a short run like a 1/4 mile, it wouldn't matter. I guess he's not as dumb as I first suspected.

 

[TheAntiBoyd]

if you are looking to save a few pennies, I really really like the Professional Products (brand) 90000 series dampners
. Avoid the cheaper 80000 series though

 

[CNC BLOCKS]

Another engine shop near me ran just the hub with out the outter ring in circle track engines and he never understood why he was breaking tining chains.

 

[Duke]

If you looked at the vibration trace of an ehgine with a bad dampener you would see shock spikes for every cylinder when it fires. The dampener acts to spread these shocks out over a longer duration which dampens the shock points. Without a dampener you will wear out rod brgs on the top and main brgs on the bottom real fast because the oil is pushed out of the brg at the same spot everytime the cylinder fires. There are a few more things that get servere shocks also IE: Timing gears and chains, Cranks, Rods, and wrist pins.

 

[Choctaw Bob]

Vibration in an engine robs power.

On one of my balanced small block Ford drag race engines in a Fox Mustang, the addition of a fluid damper picked up a tenth in the quarter.

On my BBC bucket with solid motor mounts, with a balance job and a fluid damper, there is no vibration at any engine speed. Very smooth and great throttle response.