[Land-speed] Crankshaft balancing

[John Burk]

Your pistons and rods are heavier so you have the crank rebalanced to reduce
the uneven forces on the main bearings . But that's not what the shop did .
Treating the crank as a unit without knowing if the end counterweights are
compensating for an imbalance in the middle does nothing but minimize the
external vibration of the engine . No wonder race engines are sometimes harder
on certain main bearings . For a high rpm race engine I'm not sure
conventional balancing makes any difference at all . . Balancing a crank would
require scanning it , and letting the computer tell you where to add and
remove weight . Ok Fred , here's your crank , that'll be $7900 . Using a
rotating imbalance to compensate for a reciprocating imbalance is crude enough
to begin with .

John