Here's the current situation regarding my Bad Buick...... I've taken the car out 3 times, pulling tons of power out to get down the track, but have basically only had 2 successful 60ft passes before aborting the passes killing the tires...... After the last outing had oil mess under the hood, i did have a slight front seal leak, but figured since we were pulling tons of timing, with the same fuel schedule, the methanol had contaminated the oil making the leak worse. We cleaned up the mess. got the time slip, 1.49 60ft, then the timing rolled back in and smoked the tires. Still very good data. Next day jacked the car up figuring i'd be changing the front crankshaft seal, saw a crack in the balancer hub, grabbed it and it wobbled around badly, I thought i broke the crank snout...... NOPE, crank appears to be fine, the ATI Balancer, front seal, and Proform timing cover NOT SO MUCH....... Looks like the balancer cracked straight down the dual keyways......Killed my Vegas racing plans for mid November, ATI has been informed, but will not have a replacement hub until the end of November (Hopefully)...Might be looking into a thicker diameter hub, but that gets a bit "complicated"..... To be continued......... Gary G.
Good thing the leak happened, the next trip down track may not have been nice. You do have that bad boy rockin. Nice Job!!
Mark Busher had the exact same issue,..he had a thicker hub made and the cover changes necessary,....he broke 3 I think,..so I wouldn't waste my time with a replacement,. Also make sure you hone the hub for slight hammer press fit Not the ridiculous press fit they send it with
Based on where it broke,...it makes sense the material is just too thin add stretching it over the snout ..then add the pull of the belt,...makes sense
Gary's Procharger is direct drive so no supercharger belt. Thankfully they use a rubber/urethane coupler. That could of been a costly break ahead of the balancer. Glad you found it in the pits and not the top end of the track.
Forgot about it being crank driven ,..Was it honed or just pressed on? Common failure in the LS world one reason innovatons west gets the nod b4 ATI does now
Balancer was "press on". Innovative West Discontinued the BBB balancer.. I've talked to 3 different Balancer manufactures. ATI is planning to take a new hub and instead of cutting the 1/4 key ways, do the 2 in 3/16ths. BHJ said if i sent them my broken one and I found a bigger seal, they could build something from that. One thing to consider is whatever I use, it has to be the same total "height" as the ATI, otherwise I'll have to redo a bunch of stuff...... BBB racecar stuff....
When I was mocking up my Tomahawk, I shortened the ATI hub so it wasn't sticking out so far. By doing that, I also needed to extend the seal diameter forward to allow the seal to ride on the correct diameter. When all the modifications were done, I found out that the internal counter bore for the crank bolt was too deep, giving me a wall thickness of less than .060"! Needless to say I made a new hub from 4140 prehard and changed the counter bore depth along with the modifications needed to bring it closer to the engine vs hanging out too far creating excessive leverage. I did have the keyways cut on a EDM with a slight raduis in the corners vs a sharp corner with a keyway cutter, hoping to minimize a crack starting location. I didn't increase the seal diameter, but now I'm thinking that perhaps I should have? Makes me nervous!! I can get you my CAD file if you decide to have a new one built......
Here is mine I had made out of A2 tool steel. I broke 2 ATI’s. This is before the 2nd keyway was cut into it. Split right at the keyway both times. We then opened up my front cover and installed a larger seal. So far so good! let me know if you’d like the part number for the seal I used
That’s awesome! Who made it for you? Is it same dimensions as the ATI except for thicker hub? How much thicker did you go on the hub diameter? Yes, I’d like the part number. I was looking thru the Timmken/National Seal catalog on line, trying to figure out what could work… Gary G
I had a local machinist make it for me, everything is identical to the ATI hub except the thickness of the hub snout. It fits the ati balancer perfect and drilled everything accordingly. ATI wouldn’t help me out and said it wasn’t there problem and said it would take them 6 months to make me a custom one if their “guy” said they could do it. Like you said before Innovators west is out of the BBB game now. I’ll get the seal part number for you when I get home From work today.
The stock seal shaft diameter is 2.00” if I remember correctly and my new seal shaft diameter is 2.250 which basically gave me another 1/8” of meat on each side especially where the keyways were cut, there wasn’t much there on the ATI hub
Looks good Mark. Did you end up shortening it also like the CAD file I supplied? My hope was to get it closer to the engine and not hanging out there so far. Hope it hangs in there!!!
Really sucks atu does care that their part doesn't work. I tried to use one just to make having a crank trigger wheel done easy.......well it was so out of balance it wanted weight and alot, to be added in area where there was no counter weight to add it to......swapped to a Roman and just had to remove a little not add to make it happy. Ati told me to kick rocks......thankfully I bought it through summit and they took it back.
