<VV> Re: Harmonic Balancer Y or N?

[Chris & Bill Strickland]

J R Read_HML wrote:

> I have SEEN 2 broken cranks ...

I still have the rear part of one that had a broken balancer on the 
other end of it. Too bad I owned it when it broke.

Now, the question could be asked, "Which broke first?"  I do not really 
know, but suspect from personal experience with that motor and knowing 
how my wife drives, that it was the balancer.

If the purpose of the unit is to provide external balancing to a cheaply 
assembled mass production engine that inherently is balanced by its 
opposed piston design, wouldn't this be compensated for by custom 
assembling a carefully balanced engine like most of us have?

If someone wants to try and sell me on the need for a Corvair hamonic 
balancer, they are going to have to have better authority than 'that is 
how GM did it' -- GM did a lot of things on the Corvair that were 
subject to potential improvement, improvements that were not implemented 
for cost effecive mass production.  Was the gooved balancer one of them?

Now, I would not even consider putting a SBC together without one, but 
it doesn't have pulley groove in the rubber mounted part, nor does the 
belt wrap around the top of the engine.  Wonder what sort of harmonics 
that belt induces in the balancer/crankshaft?

Also I have little use for the stamped steel & riveted crank pulleys.

Bill