Not experienced enough to give a reply. But how about order from Woody and he can guide you? He won’t sell you anymore than you need. 331 Scat CAST Rotating Assembly

 

Not experienced enough to give a reply. But how about order from Woody and he can guide you? He won’t sell you anymore than you need. 331 Scat CAST Rotating Assembly

Yep, chasing the inexpensive solution led to my 331 costing 4 times as much. I learned my lesson the hard way. Woody helped my out of the hole I had dug myself.

 

Thanks Rusty, I did talk to Jim and sent in a few emails—he was very helpful. I hate to bug him more if I’m on the fence. Not ruling out purchasing parts from him, but he is a little more expensive for the same unbalanced kit. The costs increase some more if I have him balance the assembly vs Scat. And Scat will then provide the balancer & flex plat as part of a larger package.

 

I would ask what is your time and sanity worth? I’m not sure how much you’re saving by going with Scat, but going with that @Nailbender touched on, you may be $$$$ and stress ahead having a builder like Woody put your kit together and balance it, versus Scat. Imagine pulling your engine for a vibration, then factor in gaskets and your time. Just $.02 in these inflationary times.

 

Both the balancer AND the flywheel (or flex plate) should be balanced with the crank assembly when you are swapping any parts, especially when the crank is swapped out.

 

Thumbs up for Woody, even if it was in 2007. Yes, it's held together for that long......

 

Spend the money, get it balanced or....

Engine vibrations after engine rebuild

Dear Mustang drivers. I just started my newly self build 331 with 290/290 comp cams retrofit. Howard link bar lifters. T5 conversion Ford racing intake, pertronix ignition and coil distributor , quick fuel intake 2 bowl . First i was thinking of a misfire but all my exhaust ports does get...

www.vintage-mustang.com

 

Quality comes at a price.... cut corners on an engine and you'll eventually regret it. Grenade a newly built motor, and you'll really be upset. You get what you pay for.

 

Both the balancer AND the flywheel (or flex plate) should be balanced with the crank assembly when you are swapping any parts, especially when the crank is swapped out.

I‘ve assembled a few engines where I didn’t balance the flywheel or dampner with the rotating assembly or later changed flywheels out to no ill effect, but I agree, if possible do everything together. Only problem is Woody (Jim) is only balancing the rotating assembly, while Scat is just the opposite which is why I asked my original question. How good is the Scat dampener…?

Spend the money, get it balanced or....

Never suggested I wouldn’t, just wanted to know how good the scat dampener is. If scat balances, they do the rotating assembly with dampener & flex plate, Woody only does the rotating assembly.

Quality comes at a price.... cut corners on an engine and you'll eventually regret it. Grenade a newly built motor, and you'll really be upset. You get what you pay for.

Just curious what corner you think is being cut. Having never seen a scat dampener I just wanted to know if folks are running them and if they are good to go on a street build.

 

I‘ve assembled a few engines where I didn’t balance the flywheel or dampner with the rotating assembly or later changed flywheels out to no ill effect, but I agree, if possible do everything together. Only problem is Woody (Jim) is only balancing the rotating assembly, while Scat is just the opposite which is why I asked my original question. How good is the Scat dampener…?



Never suggested I wouldn’t, just wanted to know how good the scat dampener is. If scat balances, they do the rotating assembly with dampener & flex plate, Woody only does the rotating assembly.

Woody won’t balance with dampener and flex plate/flywheel? Or doesn’t if he doesn’t have one or both?

Woody sells dampeners, or you can ship him one. You can ship him a flex plate too, if he will balance with both.

IMHO, do the math and decide. Factor in your time($$$/hour) and added stress if things don’t go well.

 

Balance should be done with the damper and flexplate on any externally balanced engine. I have my own shop do my balance work. I also paid them to blueprint my 331. I'm glad I did too because they were not happy with the finish on the crank so they micro polished it. They scrutinized and checked everything. They were not happy with the bushing on one of the rods either so I got Scat to send me another on that the shop installed. I'm not for sure I would have caught that if I had assembled that rod and piston myself. If Scat polished my crank they did not do a very good job of it.

 

Ive read through online reviews, hard to say if the Scat harmonic damper is good or bad, virtually every balancer on summit has positive & negative reviewers to include the ones that come with Scats balanced kit. No one here used scat‘s kit provided flex plate and balancer…?

Maybe my next question then, what is a good street performance balancer that won’t break the bank or overkill…? And 3 bolt vs 4, arggh, more decisions.

Without knowing any better I would probably gravitate to ATI, but that’s overkill i think. I guess I have one more email to send to woody, I believe he sells a 4 bolt powerbond unit but the timing marks are a foxbody & 10-o’clock position. These do have pretty good reviews overall. But his part won’t work for my OE setup with rad & water pump connections on the passenger side.

 

I have had this one on my car since 2019. SFI rated

Small Block Ford 289-351W Harmonic Balancer, 28oz, Black

Small Block Ford 28 ounce steel damper works great for the experienced racer or for the weekend warrior. Constructed from high quality billet steel forgings with elastomer injected between component parts, they are manufactured with inner and outer ridgelines that secure the outer ring to the...

www.speedwaymotors.com

 

I'm no mechanic by any means but I have learned through the years, "pay now for quality/experience or pay later".

 

I can't speak for the Scat balancer, but the Scat 9000 cranks will hold up to a lot of power. The engine builders and racers at Speedtalk had a thread about this a couple of months ago.

One of them said "If you know any credible long standing dirt track engine builders then you will here plenty of broken crank stories that were virtually eliminated when they started using the 9000 crank, these would be 7000 ish 500 hp ish engines. At that point the main webs are probably weaker than the 9000 crank. RPM seems to be harder on cranks and rods then power and load."

There are other posts that have opinions that go either way, but then there are those that have actual experience with them and they are positive. Make sure that it is balanced to as close to 0 grams as possible.

I have had one in my 331 since 2006. No problems. 7200 rpm and 460 HP.

I had a "Cat" crank in it for 4 years beforehand that I bought from Speedomotive. It looked like poor quality, but I used it until a wiped a few bearings at a road course due to oil starvation. I took that Cat crank in for re-surfacing and the shop called me later and said the crank was cracked all over the place so I got the Scat 9000.

 

I'm no mechanic by any means but I have learned through the years, "pay now for quality/experience or pay later".

BOCO: Buy once, Cry Once

Also unless I'm missing something the two kits between SCAT vs Woody are within ~$50 of one another. I've been hunting for engine shops to do a balance for a build, based on input I'm just going to get everything through woody i guess now 🤣

 

I have no beef with scat. I did not use their balancer. BUT, I did pay the local machine shop to check the balance before assembling my 428 with the provided Scat crank, rods, pistons, and rings. It was a good move.

 

I think I’m just going to get the unbalanced kit and have the local shop balance it all.

By far that would be the best decision as it would correct any deviation that might have occurred in the manufacturing process.