balancing question

going to need a 28oz flywheel. Though if its aftermarket, you can just change the counterweight on it.

You dont "have" to. Plenty of guys dont use their own balancers/flywheels when motors are balanced. You obviously know youd be better off, but if your not revving it to the moon, you should be fine.

balance questions

well there is balance and there is balance.

Fords are externally balanced, meaning, the crank itself must have a matched combination of the correct flywheel/flexplate and balancer to make the complete assembly "balanced".

We're speaking rotationally balanced here, not balanced in terms of two things being the same weight. A flywheel for a manual trans and a flexplate for an automatic will never weigh the same if you put them both on a scale, however, they both work properly with the crank and balancer if they are compatible, because they are balanced "rotationally" to match.

That is why 50oz and 28oz things don't work together.... you can't mix and match older flywheels / flexplates / balancers / cranks with newer ones.

When a set up is balanced at a machine shop, they are taking the factory matched rotational weights and making them match to much tighter tolerances.

As long as you make sure your balancer and crank and flywheel are all the same external balance be it all 50oz, or all 28oz, you will be fine.

If you want to match balance to great precision in order to sleep well at night and shift at 6500rpm ++ then, pull the engine apart, and bring the three components to your favorite machine shop. Here in the detroit area this service runs from $125 - $200 depending on where you go and how precise you want it.