Re: harmonic balancers, helpful?

Posted by Mike Flanagan on December 18, 1997 at 09:34:59

In Reply to: Re: harmonic balancers, helpful?
posted by Bob Carabbio on December 17, 1997 at 23:25:34

Bob did a better job than I of explaining the function of the harmonic balancer and I agree with his explanation. However, in friendly dis-agreement, I will restate my opinion that with the flywheel on the rear end of the crank and the inherent inertia carrying through from one firing sequence to the next by the weight of this rotating mass I believe the addition of a harmonic balancer is redundant. The only way to know for sure is probably destructive testing of similar units one with and one without. Radical Dude!
Were it not for the presence of the flywheel or if the mass of the flywheel were to be greatly reduced then I could see the possible merit.
That's why they make white and whole wheat bread....
God Speed Under 50.
The Model A Fool.
: The function of a harmonic balancer is to reduce the amount of torsional deformation in the crank as the cylinders fire.
: I don't have any experience with them, but am working on retro-fitting a small-block Chevy damper on mine. Looks like it'll just fit in the space that's there.Pete is using a "Rattler" that's available from Speed Equipment sources.I could make a good scientific arguement for their use.The problem as I see it is that there's no room up front to install a big enough one to really compensate for the low frequencies that an "A" kicks out.
: Ron Kelly puts his in the flywheel and claims that it smooths out the power impulses.
: Bob Carabbio

Follow Ups:
Re: harmonic balancers, helpful? Bob Carabbio December 19, 1997 at 10:20:05(1)
thanks for the help ed Rohmer December 23, 1997 at 14:37:50(0)

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