Component balancing

Hi!

I have attended the basic Engine Building Fundamentals course and was really surprised while watching the balancing module.

That is why I would like to ask the experts here about balancing with the harmonic damper.

Let's imagine one has a Ross or Fluidampr Harmonic damper for their engine.

Is it really adviseable to have the crank incl. Flywheel and clutch pressure plate balanced with these kind of dampers?

Not sure if I remember correctly but I think that the fluidampr instruction manual advises NOT to balance the rotating assembly with this damper mounted.

Thanks!

BR

RoB

I haven't attended the course, but I have always been advised to balance the parts separately so if you limit the requirements of a part replacement. i.e. you burn up a clutch/flywheel warps from slipping it off the line repeatedly you don't have an externally balanced engine with that specific flywheel. so when you balance your flywheel on its own you don't need to re-balance your rotating assembly

This method does make for stacking errors though if your going for a 10/10ths build that needs the entire assembly perfectly balanced. 1 assembly at +/- 0.25grams vs 3 or 4 components all with that same error stacking up.

If you're using an aftermarket damper from the likes of ATI/Fluidamper etc then these are internally balanced at the time of manufacture and should not be balanced with the rest of the rotating assembly. Always follow the instructions of the manufacturer which will advise you how to deal with these parts. If you're using a factory harmoinc damper then this would be balanced with the crank.

The idea is to start by balancing the crank to zero on its own and then each of the other components. This allows the flywheel to be swapped out at a later stage with another which has been correctly balanced, without needing to strip the entire engine to balance it with the crank.

Thanks Andre! This was exactly what I was thinking. I was just confused that it wasn't mentioned specifically like this in the video!

BR

RoB