I am doing my engine rebuild and the machine shop plugged all of the holes. I looked in teh manual and foudn the locaiton for the know sensor but was suprised to find the spot for the knock sensor intersects the cooling jacket. Is this correct or do I have the wrong spot?

As a second question. I purchased an 8" Professional Products harmonic balancer. Are these balancers okay or should I go with something else?

Thanks for your expertise!

Josh

 

For your first question, the answer is yes. For your second question, you'll need a 6.75" damper or a different timing cover and timing tab. The stock design is fine for street driving up to 6200 rpm.

 

oops. That was vague, sorry. Yes you have the correct spot, the knock sensor does go into a hole that used to be a drain plug for the water jacket

 

Since you have to get a different size balancer, get a proper one. Check out the ati website, they have a nice picture there of a professional products damper.

 

Thank you!

I have a cover without a tab right now, so the 8" balancer fits. However, I heard bad things about Professional Products and did not want to go cheap on the Professional Products if it would not hold up. Also, why is a large balancer better?

 

That picture says it all. Although, I will not be racing this car and it will be a fun weekend car with a little bit of strip time, so it will never see over 5,500 RPM. However, I am invested a lot of money in good components, so I guess why go cheap now.

 

larger is not better for all applications. And you don't HAVE to go larger. But the one you already bought will work just fine. I use those on a lot of my customers' builds.

 

So for what sort of applications would you use which size balancers?

I want to build a high RPM motor at some point and getting this right seems important.

 

Let's start with what GM did. 8" balancers used to be a Truck and Corvette thing. But then they were a Truck-only thing. Now, jumping subjects a bit, tom Lieb? of Scat crankshafts, is strongly against an 8" damper on any SBC crank. I can give more examples, but you can already see the trend: away from 8"-ers. If you're building a high-rpm engine, then you're going to have it balanced, which is something GM never did to the production engines. An ATI SuperDamper is a good choice for a serious engine, but they'll do you a custom damper if you're going all-out.

 

It will be balanced, but it's not going to be that serious. Solid lifter, but only about 7000 rpm redline. Also a 3" stroke.

On the ATI Superdamper, I see there are two sizes, 6" and 7". Which one is better for what purposes?

 

As far as I can tell, the only reason the larger dampers are even still sold is the old guys who insist on doing the same old thing the same old way. I'd use the 6" for nearly everything, but most of my customers end up with the nicer-looking Prof. Prod., which are also cheaper.