Should I Change my Harmonic Balancer?

fastsc92

Registered User
My balancer is fine, and it shows no signs of letting go. I dont want it to let loose on me when I least expect it. Should I change it anyways before it happens? The motor is mostly stock with only bolts on's like MAF, TB, pulley, exhaust and nitrous. Will a new one from ford be fine in my case? The BHJ balancer is 360...plus i'll need a set of pulley's which are another 150. Thats a lot of money. I heard the stock replacment goes for about 250, and comes with a pulley installed. Which would be better in my case. This pulley has held up for 103,000 miles. Any thoughts?
 
I made it 183k on my car before the head gaskets blew, and the balancer is fine. The problem is the bolts snap after a while, and if you remove it and re-install the balancer it will have a little play and thats not good. Replace the bolt if anything. On my 92 it has 152k miles, original balancer but I just put a new bolt in it but the balancer wasn't removed. I would put a new crank bolt in it and not worry about it.

Did you run your 14.2 on the nitrous?
 
that ran 14.2 with only a CAI, 5% pulley and full exhaust no cats. This winter I did a 73mm MAF, 75mm TB, Ported Plenum, Nitrous, AFPR, 3.27 gears, lowered it, and all poly bushings for less/no wheel hop. I'm yet to go to the track this year, it just opened last week. I go every week, and i should be there next week. I hope to see low 13's to very high 12's. I read somewhere that a 60 shot of nitrous takes a full sec. off your time. And gears give about .2 with your 60 foot. I guess I'll find out.
 
I wouldn't worry about it if the damper is in good condition (no wobble), but you do put more of a load on it with the 5% pulley.

I have a BHJ and March UD pulleys and like them, but everything else is stock and very slow. I replaced the damper because it had a slight wobble and I had the money at the time. If I had to do it over I would just put a stock assembly on and use the rest of the money for an exhaust.

Aaron
 
If it makes you feel any better, I've still got an OEM dampner on mine and I'm overdriving the supercharger about 23% and revving to about 6200 rpms at the track.

A new dampner was installed when the engine I have now was built in Jan of 2002. At the time BHJs were scarce and cost a lot more. If it fails I'll get a BHJ, until then I'm not worried.

David
 
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