Anyone see any problems with balancing in a stock balancer with my 381 rotating assembly? Then a couple weeks later throwing on an ATI??

I want to do it right, but want my car running, so if I can do it this way, i just wouldnt spin it too high on the stock one till I got the ATI.

I know the stock would have to be balanced at zero for this to be even remotely possible. Can the machine shop check it for zero balance?

 

generally speaking, it is better to balance the rotating assembly w/ the balancer and flywheel you are going to use in the car. it just eliminates the possibility of problems. but, if you absolutly cant afford it right now, balancing it w/ the stock balancer probobly will be alright.

 

Stock balancers may or may not be neutral. I wouldn't chance spending the money to build and engine and then go cheesy and damaging it. You need to find out if the engine you had balanced was with the balancer or not. If it was then you have to keep the balancer it was done with or have a new one balanced. A neutral balance would not work in that case.

 

The stock LT1 balancer is neutral. I wouldn't hesitate to install another harmonic balancer that was also neutral.

Rich Krause

 

Sorry hate to disagree but Doug Anderson does disagree with you.
As he said here and I quote.
HUB AND BALANCER
The balancer is a two-piece assembly with a pulley that bolts onto the hub. Separating the two made it easier to install the Optispark distributor on the assembly line and out in the field. The holes in the hub are offset, so the balancer only fits on it one way, but there’s no keyway in the hub to index the hub on the crank. This shouldn’t be a problem unless the damper was drilled at the factory to "trim" the final engine assembly.

If it was drilled a lot to compensate for an engine that was out of balance, you could end up with a shaker, depending on how everything stacked up with the remanufactured engine compared to the original engine. If you encounter a balance problem on a remanufactured LT1, try rotating the balancer assembly on the crank 90° at a time to see if it eliminates the problem.

I have 3 old balancers and they are ALL drilled to the max.

Dave

 

Not sure who you are disagreeing with, but I think you are misunderstanding....the engine is not built yet, an ATI balancer better be completely neutral or else I wouldnt be paying $400 for it, so if my stock balancer is zero, or if the shop can drill it for zero, technically there shouldnt be a problem putting another neutral balancer on later, such as an ATI.

Just sucks cuz thats one more week I would have to wait before I can have the engine built.