Having a balanced motor is as important as having balanced
tires on your car. Have you ever driven a car or truck with an
out of balance tire? If so, you'll most likely remember how the
vehicle shook and vibrated, but once you had the offending wheel
balanced things smoothed out nicely. Well, the same holds true
for engines. If it's out of balance it will shake and vibrate
more than necessary. Furthermore, if you modify your motor's
internal components such as installing different pistons, rods
or stroker flywheels, your motor will need to be balanced again.
But it is not as easy as having your wheels balanced when you
change your tires. Balance Masters® set out to change that problem.
There are three basic methods of balancing a motor: static,
dynamic and active. Static balancing is the old school method
done by weighing each part and mathematically calculating where
to remove weight from the flywheels by drilling holes in them.
Dynamic balancing is achieved by installing the flywheel assembly
on a computer-operated machine and spun between 200 rpm and 500
rpm (similar to a computer wheel balancer). The machine tells
you where to drill the flywheel and how much material to remove.
The final method is active balancing.
Active balancing embeds a small amount of mercury inside one
of the flywheels. It works on Newton's theory of relativity (for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) and as
the crankshaft spins the mercury automatically moves to the light
side to counteract the action generated by the heavy side of
the flywheel.
Static or dynamically balancing a set of flywheels is similar
to balancing a tire and wheel only instead of adding weight to
the light side, you normally remove weight from the heavy side
by drilling holes in it. Balance Masters® adds weight to your
flywheels in the form of mercury. In the next few pages, we will
show you how it's done.
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1. Chris Gamble, the driving force
behind Balance Masters®, placed our flywheels on the workbench
and stamped an ID number and the Balance Masters® patent number
on the pinion side. This ID number can be used to identify the
date they were done and which technician performed the process. |
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2. Next, the flywheels were mounted
to a special fixture on a lathe. Then Chris wrapped a custom
blanket around them to hold the rods in place and protect the
assembly during the machining process. |
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3. Chris machined a groove into
the pinion side. This is where the mercury tube will be potted
in. |
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4. The next step
is to clean the machined groove thoroughly. |
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5. Chris mixes a
small batch of specially-formulated epoxy resin and pours a thin
layer into the groove. |
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6. This is the meat
of the subject. What appears to be an O-ring is actually a hollow
tube with a precise amount of mercury inside. The mercury moves
freely in the tube so it can counter balance the motor's pulses.The
mercury tube is placed into the groove and seated into the first
layer of resin. |
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7. A second layer
of resin is poured into the grove covering the mercury tube and
cured under heat lamps for 24 hours. |
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8. Here is the final
product ready to be packaged and shipped. |
