Do I need balancing?

Balancing will increase the life of the bearings, seals, valvetrain, and make more power by not beating itself to death. If you didn't balance it, it'd last more than a year because the majority of factory engines aren't balanced but it's highly advised that you do. It has to be done in the machine shop and they put the crank in a machine that identifies where metal can be removed or some needs to be added. The rods are weighed on the big and small ends to make sure they're the same weight and then the pistons are checked for weight as well. Then the whole kit is balanced as a unit. A full balancing typically costs around $150 and is well worth the money.

Balancing involves the rotating assembly. Basically your crank pistons and connecting rods. Balancing wieghs the rods and pistons of each cylinder and gets them close if not the exact wieght. usally the exact wieght. Then the counter wieghts are also set so as to counter the wieghts of the pistons and connecting rods. Balancing an engine does help in the long term because a balanced engine gets rid of a lot of vibration. A balanced engine will sustain higher rpm for longer then a non balanced one. It however is not nessesary to do so to an engine if you are doing a cam and head swap. It means tearing down the entire engine. As long as you keep it under 6500rpm your 302 will last for a long time.

91stangy said:

I have a 1990 302, which I'm in the middle of making it a cam(Anderson Ford N41) and head(AFR 165 61cc) motor. I've heard just recently that if I want to keep my motor for longer than a year, I should look into balancing my engine after changing my cam and heads, is this true? If it is, how is it done, can I do it, or is a shop's assistance required. And do I need to do it before or after I put everything together.

Sorry I'm so vague; I don't know much about this balancing, it was talked about during a quick conversation and I thought who is better to ask haha. Any info is appreciated. Thanks much!

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Yeah, as the other guys have said...
Somebody is messing with you.

There isn't anything to balance with a hci swap.

jason

vristang said:

Yeah, as the other guys have said...
Somebody is messing with you.

There isn't anything to balance with a hci swap.

jason

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If you were tearing the bottom end apart and putting in new pistons, I'd say absolutely get it balanced.

But like Jason said, there's no reason to tear your engine apart to get it balanced when doing a hci swap. Just throw on the heads and cam and call it good.