Balancing engine parts at home.

[oprn]

Cost is not the deterrent for me, availability is. It's a 5 hour drive to get engine parts balanced and driving it is cheaper than shipping heavy engine parts at this point in time. Shipping would double the cost of the job.
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[nextgen]

Oprn funny you said that, with a T-4 engine in a bug, especially 30 years ago there was not much of choice for stainless steel Exhausts.

Went thru several Thunderbird exhausts and found a company in the UK. Justkempers. I called the guy and said I got what you want for $250 ( great price ) but it is going to cost you a lot more to shop it.

I asked were he was and he said 5 miles out from London. I told him to send it to Otis Elevator. Shipping was $15 and Otis sent it to me in NYC no charge.

Our shipping dept guy scratched his head, what the heck!!!


The company is Bluebird, excellent stainless steel systems!


Same exhaust 30 year later.

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[clonebug]

Contrary to popular belief..... you don't HAVE to send your stuff to get balanced........ You can just get the pistons and rods the same and still get plenty of miles out of the engine even revving to 5500 plus rpm.

My engine had the pistons balanced to the same weight and the rods were balanced to the same weight. Not end for end just same gross weight. It spent nine years putting out 200 hp with a turbo up to 5800 rpm with a stock crank. Upon inspection this winter the crank and rod bearings were perfect and the thrust was in spec. It could have gone another 40,000 miles if needed.

YMMV........
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[Lingwendil]

Rods and Pistons are so easy to match up for weight that it makes perfect sense to do at home. Anybody with a postal scale and a grinder of some sort can do it so long as they take their time and pay attention. I've done a few and it's usually actually a pretty quick job, as most are fairly close. A tenth of a gram is surprisingly easy to reach assuming your scale is accurate enough.

Crank and flywheel however I feel not terribly comfortable with. I've seen ideas for jigs but always felt it better to be done by a professional. Places like DPR will match a flywheel and crank before sending out to you. That and home balanced rods and slugs is pretty darn good for the average home engine build.
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[nextgen]

When I sent my crank, flywheel and clutch, the machinist said I will never reach the RPM's he balanced my parts.


Can't imagine trying to do that level of balancing in my garage with file and drill.
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[NAES]

I would say I got very lucky on a set of AA P&Cs. 3 pistons with rings came in at 14.8oz. The other on is 14.9oz.

.1 oz is 2.8gm which is incredibly close for off the shelf stuff.
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[Chickensoup]