A couple months ago I installed an ATI super damper and pinned it in the front along with an 8 rib crank pulley for my procharger. Everything was fine until recently. Now my crank seal is leaking behind the balancer. I’ve been reading up on this, and I guess I was supposed to loosen the timing cover bolts and install the balancer to torque, then torque the timing cover bolts? Is this how you guys have all done this? When I did my cam swap a long time ago I never kept the timing cover bolts loose to install the balancer and I never had a problem. No where in the ATI directions did it say to loosen the timing cover bolts. Or, could my blower belt be too tight and causing this leak? It’s not any tighter than I ran the 6 rib belt, which we all know is super tight. When I go to change the seal, what’s the proper method? I’m really bummed and pissed about this because it’s a lot of work with the blower in the way and I just had it all apart not long ago. thanks for any input!

This is on a LS1, I accidentally posted this in gen 4. Anyways should be the same. Also, about the same time I did the balancer install I also installed a vented catch can between the passenger valve cover and the blower inlet hat. Could this be causing too much crankcase pressure and about to blow the front crank seal out?

There’s no need to re-align the front cover for a balancer/damper change. The cover is already centered from the previous damper, granted you aligned it correctly. I do mine the same way you did, by installing my dampers first, and then tightening the cover, allowing the damper to align my cover/seal for me. Personally I’d be more inclined to look into this being a crankcase pressure issue, especially with boost.

I didn’t change the seal or touch the cover when I did the balancer swap. It never leaked before so I’m pretty sure the cover was aligned properly when I did my cam swap about 12 years ago.

What would be the best way to vent crankcase pressure? I have a breather on the oil fill, and the vented catch can to catch any oil from entering the blower intake. Throttle body port blocked off. Still using the stock pcv system otherwise.

High crankcase pressure can definitely cause engine seals to leak. Did you happen to heat the damper hub with a torch when you installed it? Getting the hub too hot can also cause premature front seal failure.

No I didn’t heat it. I just used a long reach harmonic balancer install tool from autozone. Then torqued it down with the old bolt and Then put the new bolt in. The install was fairly painless. It didn’t give me any problems while drawing it on.

What type of pcv setup are all you FI guys running? I’ve researched this til my eyes bled but never get a definitive answer.

Do you have a diagram of how everything is routed. People swear by MM cans but never say how to hook them up and the website doesn’t have good info

Does the catch can actually catch anything? It’s seems like nothing more than a breather on each valve cover. I have a breather on the oil fill port and it has never been saturated. I dont see how this system works properly but I like how clean and simple it is.