Over the last couple of years I collected a bunch of pieces to build a budget low boost 6.0. I had a crank out of a 5.3, a " summit racing" 6.0 block (that if I remember correctly had an atk tag on it) later style rods with the floater pins, and aftermarket stock style 4.030 pistons. I also had a new ram steel ls flywheel, and new GM balancer/crank pulley (short style that came with the gm accessory kit.

I brought it all to the local machine shop that is pretty reputable for balancing. They do some ls work for local circle track racers so I felt confident.

I picked it all up - no problems all went well. They had to add a couple slugs to the crank which I guess is common when using the 5.3 crank in a 6.0 (maybe 50 grams I forgot exactly).

It all sat in my basement for a year or so and I am finally getting it together...

Here's the question - It looks like he actually enlarged or drilled out a two of the factory balancer/pulley holes a little (the new balancer has factory drill/balance holes in it, he added more or enlarged existing).. Not a lot but he definitely did something there. Also, it *looks* like he did a little hole or enlarged an existing hole on the brand new flywheel too.

My under standing on these motors is they balance without the flywheel and balancer. Why would they have modified those brand new parts? Surely ram sends out a flywheel spot on, no? Does this sound like a hack job or actually something that can be required in certain circumstances? At this point its together and will be running soon but I am just curious. Thanks

PS the balancer isn't keyed, and he didn't mark it for re-assembly, so unless he balanced the balancer on its own (which I do not even know if is possible), what good would it do ?

 

Are you sure the flywheel and harmonic balancer weren't that way when new? They both should be balanced from the factory.

 

 

Good stuff Scott! Good call on balancing the flywheel/clutch and balancer.

 

Hi TR, yes those items were "0" balanced.

MY method is to ADD "TDC" reference MARKS to the crankshaft/crankcase, the flywheel/crankcase, AND the Front Pulley/timing cover.

I also ADD a front pulley/crank snout alignment reference MARK.

The ABOVE method of marking will allow for an easy cam timing inspection at Split Overlap.

Lance

 

Like a tire,, the flywheel and harmonic balancer pulley can be both static and dynamic balanced,,
A small tweak on the flywheel and harmonic balancer to me shows they were paying attention..
When you join the crank and flywheel that can never be perfect so a adjustment to cover the
tiny amount of runout is pretty normal.

+1 on indexing the parts, if the engine doesn't use a offset bolt on the flywheel to make sure it
only goes on 1 way my builder upsizes 1 hole so it uses 5 of one bolt and 1 slightly larger bolt.
He also indexes the clutch cover (if its not) so it only fits the flywheel one way.

 

Thanks for the info. the factory balancer has a bunch of small precision drilled weight relief holes in it, some clustered together. Then you can see where he "kissed" a couple of them with like a 3/8 bit that was going dull. On the flywheel it was harder to tell if he did it or not, but one of the drill holes looked a little sloppy compared to the rest (just like the balancer), which is what made me suspicious.Oh well guess I will find out. If there is a balance issue in the end will it be instantly noticeable when we fire it? PS The PP was not part of the balance.