Crank damper from Innovators West


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tpraceman

THEE GT OWNER
Mark II Lifetime
Le Mans 2010 Supporter
Feb 20, 2006
2,835
Washington Michigan
PERFECT and Thank You; I learned some great information through your post.

Behind the scenes I have had several conversations with owners once this thread appeared and to a person I said "relax" the OEM setup is not only fine but even more so I would never replace a balancer unless the entire rotating assembly was being checked for balance even though the assembly is primary assembly is balanced within. Then add to this a given amount of weight is required ..... lighter is no always better.

Takes care

Shadowman

Bill & Indy I agree with you. Dan S. I know has the procharger mustang record and has his own composite shop for mustang parts. And such has some track experience. I agree with Bill that the only way I would change a balance weight would be to do it while building a motor and setting it up for it.

It is also one thing for WOT for a few seconds and driving at all rpm's and speeds. Heck if fourfather (eddie) was on line he can tell you what they replace in a 4 second pass and use the very best parts buckets of money can buy.

For Alky guys and I ran two rails and two door cars for 35 years we got away with a whole bunch less. And yet I never set up a motor then changed the balancer. I bet some do but after all the work I spent getting the balance perfect it seems crazy to change it. But technology has come a long way.

And Torrie you are correct our motors exceed just about anything I have ever heard of. Who ever thought you could put this much power and this many miles to a bone stock motor.



Some might say 20# hanging on a guys crank could make one hung:lol
 
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B O N Y

MODERATOR & FGT OWNER
Mark IV Lifetime
Sep 5, 2005
12,110
Fresno, Ca.
We need to cut Dr. Frank a little slack...
Sadly none of his patients are able to offer verbal intercourse, so he urns for adult interchange. :)
 
Hey everyone I have a post you may want to read.....

i tried to get on the forum apperantly you have to own one or have a vin # to register
ill try to say this as best i can


the factory ford dampner is good dampner its just to heavy, I'm sure on the dyno at a controlled
rate it does just fine however most dynos do not measure acceleration rate.With 12lbs less of rotating mass this is huge amount on a 50 lb crankshaft that 12lb of extra mass has to be accelerated every time you shift.it also has to be decelerated this is where one of the problems start .this dampner is like a big pendulum on the end of this 1.249 snout (that is not very big in the world of crankshaft snouts) when it is accelerated and decelerated the snout twist back and forth it is just like twisting a piece of wire back and forth it will only do this so many times until it breaks.the idea is to have the lightest weight housing with a heavy dampening device .
all dampners have a dampning device or shock absorber of some kind inside them. balancers have weights to dynamically balance the rotating assembly.a dampner that is weighted serves both purposes.
we started producing dampners in 1983 out of necessity, the factory dampner could not control the hamonics within the crankshaft and in a race application it would bend the crankshaft in three 1/4 mile passes. this was the time when nhra began the sfi 18.1 certification on dampners. the requirments for this specification is to be spun tested to 12500 rpm for 1 hour and all materials to be tensal and yield tested to their manufacturing specification they cannot degrade during the test.this is important because a factory dampner cannot pass this test.it will destroy its self .
The type of dampner we build for the gt supercar the Shelby 500 and 4.6 mustangs is a wet friction design
the principle behind this design is their are two steel inertia rings inside(about 3 1/2 lbs of mass) within an all billet aluminum case. they each have a clutch disk and are pressure loaded with a belvelle spring this mechanism is submerged in a turbine oil.the ideal behind this type of dampner is when the crankshaft accelerates during a firing pulse the crankshaft speeds up for 30 degrees and then begins to slow down for 60 degrees then 90 degrees after that began it starts over four times per revolution .when this occurs the inertia rings rotate in a counterclockwise rotation the amount they move is based on the impact from the acceleration pulse.as the inertia rings move against the clutch disks they create heat from friction at this point the heat is dissipated Thur the aluminum case.
we stress on our website about servicing we feel any component on a race engine should be serviced at some point .most racers service their engines annually, what ever your intervals are at some point the engine needs attention if you change bearings ,rings and have the engine apart send the dampner in
we will disassemble, clean ,change all the screws, clutch disks, fluid ,polish ,re certify and inspect for $84.00 turn around is two or three days.


Bradley Waddle, Owner
Waddle's Mfg & Machine, Co / Innovators West Inc
 

Gulf GT

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
Feb 9, 2006
1,539
California
I was told in direct terms that the Innovators damper did not need service for a street car that hit the track every once in a while. Service intervals are for race cars, which is the most common use for their product. ATI and others recommend the same thing.
 
Aug 25, 2006
4,436
****** Caution ******

Now there is no doubt that technology of controlling rotating harmonics over the last 25 years has become even better defined; I say 25 years because this is the date stamp used in MMP's cut and paste at which point Innovate say the need and created a dampener.

Now I can share first hand that the dampener on the Ford GT is a very nice piece and IMO unless is to be operated at an RPM significantly higher than presented by OEM then I would say that there is no concern. Furthermore even if I were intending on operating her in a much higher RPM range I would still use the OEM for bench testing to confirm at what point it is no longer effective if at all; I suspect that it would remain stable and able to control harmonics even at much higher RPMs.

As stated before; lighter is not always better (weight or lack thereof is added and or removed throughout an assembly based on the intended overall operating conditions) and when it comes to the primary rotating assembly of the gal's heart this is only one of many pieces being asked to perform a task and the key is to have harmony and controlled harmonics not simply a group of cool pieces attached as an assembly.

I would never install any secondary balancer unless it was being considered during an engine build and then the choice would be based on the intended usage of the engine and then and only then a final selection would be made. There is no doubt that one balancer design is not the best for all applications however when considering pieces for the street you look for pieces and assemblies that offer the greater effective operating range whereas if only drag racing we narrow this specification greatly.

In closing I have two additional comments;

1. The fluid style dampeners were originally brought to market many years ago because at that time the OEM balancers simply could not be made to remain stable; they would shift and at times come apart whereas today's OEM balances do not seem to be plagued with these issues. Furthermore the style and type of balancer on every Ford GT is a "Performance Designed" viscous assembly which is not typically used by the OEM; truly a quality piece.

2. I share that if you deem is necessary or desirable to install a new dampener on your gal with her heart still in place be prepared for an awkward situation to say the very least and also recognize that the risk remains that you may have to pull her heart to complete the process.

Takes care

Shadowman
 
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B O N Y

MODERATOR & FGT OWNER
Mark IV Lifetime
Sep 5, 2005
12,110
Fresno, Ca.
I will take the liberty of reposting Indy GT's comments:-
Guys, this is an interesting post. Unfortunately quite a bit of mis-information is posted herein. I have done some research on this topic so let me try to clarify some of the points brought up to help un-confuse:

1) The crankshaft assembly we have in our GT’s is just fine for its intended design condition. 550 hp was the engine power design point at 6500 rpm redline and as Dave correctly points out many owners have moded-up to 800-900 hp and have had no reported crankshaft issues. Will you have torsional issues if you push the engine (by whatever mod you care to apply) to 1300 hp (235% of design power) and turn the engine 7500 rpm (+15% overspeed) my guess would be yes! But the engine was not DESIGNED to run at that power reliably. So if one owner chooses to run to those outlying conditions and has a problem, why is the “sky falling” for the 99.999% of us other owners? Clearly it is not.
2) The crankshaft harmonic damper selected by the Ford design engineers for the GT engine is a “viscous” damped balancer. This is a sophisticated (and expensive) damper which uses a precisely tuned weight which moves within the damper annulus to attenuate crankshaft harmonics. The annulus is filled with a (relatively temperature insensitive) viscous silicon fluid. During engine development the team spent many hours of dyno testing to determine the various “harmonics” (dynamic resonances at power of the rotating crankshaft assembly with the rods, bearings, pistons, rings and flywheel) of our GT engine crankshaft. Typically the 4th order harmonic of the engine firing order, is the most dominant mode and the OEM damper effectively dissipates this mode. I would think it reasonable that the telemetry and measuring equipment necessary to map these harmonic modes up to the 12th harmonic would be beyond most if not all aftermarket balancer companies resourses. Thus I would conclude the Ford engine team knows more about our engine dynamics than most others and if a 20 pound damper was specified, then that is what the engine needs.
3) Engine torsional and bending harmonics are difficult to understand even for most engineers. Comments such as reduced rotating mass is always a gain and thus leads to less stress on the crank are not always true. Crankshaft harmonics are not “intuitive” and often counter to what you might think is the correct answer. Thus a 10 pound damper is not ALWAYS better than a 20 pound damper just because it is 10 pounds lighter. It depends on what mass is necessary to attenuate the quantified responses. Will the engine acceleration characteristics be faster with a 10# damper vs. a 20# damper? Possibly. But in my opinion given the torque output of our blown engine and the mass of the rotating components the engine must accelerate to move the car (i.e. clutch, transaxle gears, differential, rear axles, wheels and tires) the 10# delta in damper weight could likely not be felt by the driver.
4) The viscous damper also has the attribute of providing damping over a broad range of engine rpm. The other type damper is termed “elastomeric” as it uses a compliant rubber layer between the damper hub and harmonic tuning mass. This type of damper is less expensive, narrower in its attenuation properties and not as effective as the vicious style at high rpm. Ford has opted to use a “dual-mode elastomeric” harmonic balancer for the 2008 GT500 MOD5.4 engine. Note this IS a different damper than the viscous damper used on all GT engines and is tuned to slightly different discrete frequencies. The GT500 crankshaft is slightly different than that used in the GT and thus the harmonic balancer is tuned as best the dual-mode elastomeric damper can do, for that specific engine. I would see little advantage of swapping the GT500 damper for the viscous GT damper to save the reported weight difference only to have a less effective damping system.
5) One must also consider the environment in which the component is expected to operate. Our mid-engine GT sees little if any airflow around the engine. Certainly the airflow cooling characteristics of a MOD5.4 engine in a front mounted GT500 are dissimilar to that of our GT engine. All harmonic dampers absorb and dissipate torsional vibrations. They attenuate the detrimental harmonics by converting the unwanted oscillations into heat energy. The elastomeric damper is more temperature sensitive and needs cooling air to dissipate this generated heat. Thus an application in a front engine car with cooling air bathing the engine is fine for this type of system, but not so good for a GT application which has little airflow to dissipate the converted heat energy. The viscious damper as OEM supplied is the better application here.
6) At the engine rpm ranges ALL of us owners will ever use there is NO risk of the OEM harmonic damper bursting. Certification testing of the GT balancer was made to 10,000 rpm and held for 2 minutes. The GT viscous damper is just fine for all engine speeds up to at least 7,000 rpm. The damper selected for the GT500 MOD5.4 which IS different than the GT damper was proof tested to 12,000 rpm. Thus there is no need to worry about a damper burst. Claims to the contrary are just not accurate.
7) There have been statements to the effect that the harmonic balancer is somehow connected to the rpm limitation (red line) placed on the engine. Again factually inaccurate. The redline speed of the engine is determined by engineering based on the calculated drivetrain stresses (piston pin, connecting rod, crankshaft throw fillets, main bearing caps, etc.), bearing oil film performance, valvetrain stresses/dynamics and desired engine longevity. Will the engine turn faster than 6500 rpm and not fail? Absolutely! Many of the tuners bump up the electronic redline as part of the tune. Will the engine still have the durability aspects the 300 hour Certification run at the OEM recognized redline? Likely not, but that’s what we owners trade off for the increased rpm capability. And we are not likely to use all the engine longevity Ford built into the engine anyway with our limited driving use.

Sorry if this was long winded, but there appeared to be many different aspects to cover. To summarize, the viscous damper Ford supplied on the GT engine is just fine at attenuating the engine crankshaft harmonics throughout the rpm range most of us owners will ever use. Hope this helps others understand some of the complexities of this damper.
__________________
 

BlackICE

GT Owner
Nov 2, 2005
1,416
SF Bay Area in California
I will attempt to clarify the implications of a balancer change. The crankshaft bolt is a one time use torque to yield bolt. Instructions for tightening the bolt are as follows:

Install a new crankshaft pulley bolt and the original washer, tighten the bolt in 4 stages:

Stage 1: Tighten the bolt to 90 Nm (66 lb-ft).
Stage 2: Loosen 1 full turn.
Stage 3: Tighten the bolt to 40 Nm (30 lb-ft).
Stage 4: Tighten and additional 180 degrees.

The bolt at times can be a bitch to remove. Some have reported needing a 3ft breaker bar with a lot of muscle, or an air impact wrench hammering for many minutes to remove it. If using a breaker bar you have to find a way to stop the crankshaft from turning. I don't have 1st hand experience removing the crankshaft bolt, but have removed some torque to yield half shaft bolts. There is always some risk of bolt failure when removing any torque to yield bolts. If this happens on the crankshaft the repair most likely will require removal of the engine! Also they isn't enough space in vivo for an impact wrench so a long breaker bar is the only option. The bolt head might just twist off!

So the bottom line question is what is it going to cost to install a new damper it the bolt happens to snap? I am sure than Jack has much more experience removing dampers and maybe Jack at MMP can give us an estimate of cost to install the damper and what the costs would be if the bolt broke.

IMHO, the chances of a stock damper causing a failure is lower than the crankshaft bolt failing upon removal for anyone not tracking the car extensively and staying below 7000 rpm and 800 HP.
 
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B O N Y

MODERATOR & FGT OWNER
Mark IV Lifetime
Sep 5, 2005
12,110
Fresno, Ca.
We have discussed this to death. It keeps resurfacing like herpes. Enough is enough.
Jack, you want to sell it on your web site, go for it.
Thread closed.
 
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