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Crankshaft Dampers
- Thread startercaptdistraction
- Start date
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- 899
- 545
It looks like a factory damper to me with the dry sump pully bolted to the front. It definitely isn't an ATI.
https://roushyates.com/engines/ford-mustang/
Black Boss has a Roush built 5.2 in his new car. He does not have a dry sump. Maybe he will chime in with what balancer Roush used.
The Roush built 5.0 dry sump motor in my car has an ATI damper. So far so good.
- 899
- 545
I should have said that I really don't think there is a problem with the ATI damper. The 5.0L Roush engines I have seen all had a ATI. I suspect that improper installation and / or the damper or damper bolt coming loose would eventually cause a failure.
- Thread starter
- #25
captdistraction
GrumpyRacer
I’m sure I wasn’t capable of installing it correctly, which explains the failure. Doesn’t explain why I wasted everyone’s time with failure analysis.
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
- 899
- 545
I sincerely apologize, that was not meant as a shot at you.I really was just stating that if something like that comes loose, it can eventually result in a failure due to unseen fatigue.
For example, I found that one of my Howe ball joints had come loose early this summer. I tightened it back up. It sheared in two in turn one at Watkins Glen over Labor Day. I personally believe that the ball joint failure was directly attributed to it loosing torque earlier in the year.
I still think that capts motor was not balanced as good as it could be, which was no fault of his. These are production built motors, even the crate motors. They get what is commonly referred to as a "Detroit Balance". Which is not a balance at all. Its just that all parts are made to a certain weight. Some combinations of parts are good, some are not as good.
Engine balancing is harder than most guys think. My buddy from high school now owns his own engine machine shop. He's scrapped plenty of cranks because they were not able to be balanced to racing tolerances. And not just stock cranks. He's had to send back brand new aftermarket cranks.
On top of this, I sent pics of the crank failure to the head metallurgist at my work. He said it failed due to low cycle torsional fatigue. Which agrees with the theory of a poor balance.
Stock rubber dampers really only work well at one rpm. Fluid dampers work less well at that same rpm but also add damping over a wider rpm range. If the crank has a known torsional vibration issue at a given rpm, lets say 7000 rpm, and Ford designs the stock damper for 7000 rpm, than you will not improve on that with a fluid damper. If you change to non-stock rods and pistons and wrist pins and actually spin balance the crank for these new weights, then maybe the peak torsional is no longer at the same 7000 rpm that it was stock. In that case, its possible that the fluid damper will work better than than the stock one. But without actually testing torsional resonances, we are all just guessing.
Engine balancing is harder than most guys think. My buddy from high school now owns his own engine machine shop. He's scrapped plenty of cranks because they were not able to be balanced to racing tolerances. And not just stock cranks. He's had to send back brand new aftermarket cranks.
On top of this, I sent pics of the crank failure to the head metallurgist at my work. He said it failed due to low cycle torsional fatigue. Which agrees with the theory of a poor balance.
Stock rubber dampers really only work well at one rpm. Fluid dampers work less well at that same rpm but also add damping over a wider rpm range. If the crank has a known torsional vibration issue at a given rpm, lets say 7000 rpm, and Ford designs the stock damper for 7000 rpm, than you will not improve on that with a fluid damper. If you change to non-stock rods and pistons and wrist pins and actually spin balance the crank for these new weights, then maybe the peak torsional is no longer at the same 7000 rpm that it was stock. In that case, its possible that the fluid damper will work better than than the stock one. But without actually testing torsional resonances, we are all just guessing.
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Mad Hatter
Gotta go Faster
Just got my rotating assembly back from Balancing,,,.... All good and fine... But the OEM Damper was out a little and was left at zero.... That left a doubt in my mind if the extra wieght to one side was on purpose?? Should have I balanced my damper?? Just last minute jitters before starting the build.
Grant 302
basic and well known psychic
I'd think you'd want it at zero, but I've never adjusted one. How far out was it? Maybe check another 1 or 2 dampers.
Mad Hatter
Gotta go Faster
It was out by a gram or 2, the shop said it was within parameters but they left everything at zero.
thanks, I will go worry about something else now.
thanks, I will go worry about something else now.
- 899
- 545
Is this related to your post in the road racing forum concerning drilling a few small holes in the balancer as part of engine / crankshaft balancing? In that post you said that three small holes were drilled into the balancer as part of crankshaft balancing. Are we talking about the same balancer?
Mad Hatter
Gotta go Faster
Sorry, yes the crank was balanced with three small holes and the Damper as well had three holes.
- 899
- 545
Ok. The damper is supposed to be neutral balanced out of the box, but it is an OEM piece so it will not be perfect. Like your balancer, you can expect it to be off by a gram or two.
Your machinist removed weight from your balancer to balance your overall rotating assembly. If you ever need to replace your damper, you will want to make the new damper match its current drilled ballance as part of the overall rotating assembly. The same goes for the flywheel.
If everything was manufactured perfectly, there would have been no need to remove weight from the balancer. But, even if your balancer had been perfect, the machinist might have needed to remove some weight to offset something elsewhere in the assembly.
Your machinist removed weight from your balancer to balance your overall rotating assembly. If you ever need to replace your damper, you will want to make the new damper match its current drilled ballance as part of the overall rotating assembly. The same goes for the flywheel.
If everything was manufactured perfectly, there would have been no need to remove weight from the balancer. But, even if your balancer had been perfect, the machinist might have needed to remove some weight to offset something elsewhere in the assembly.
Grant 302
basic and well known psychic
Been wanting to get this off my chest about the ATI damper and what I think went wrong with its use on @captdistraction 's engine. I just really didn't want to get in the middle of this subject earlier.
First, there's been a LOT of finger pointing (not by Capt) at Ford and 'Detroit Balance', etc. There's also been somewhat an irrational disbelief that ATI couldn't have *anything* to do with the failure. I'd like to point out a few simple things that help *me* to believe that there was nothing wrong going on in the crankcase side of his engine. The first thing is that there wasn't a primary failure *inside* the engine. If there were issues with balance, I would expect a failure propagating from one of the fillet areas of one of the journals. Second, the failure was all the way out at the snout. So I don't see how a balance issue goes from inside the crankcase through the OPG and past the timing chain drive...only then to destroy the snout. Just doesn't make sense to me.
So if we just look at the front cover items, there's the OPG, timing gear, and the ATI damper. So far, I haven't seen any reason to 'blame' the OPG, or the higher amplitude of forces and jerk coming form the valvetrain side...
Deductive reasoning leaves one thing square in the bulls-eye.
Okay, so what, Grant?
I don't think the failure was really torsional as presented and argued. Sure, once a crack was formed, it was propagated by normal torsional stress and cycling from valvetrain events. However...the issue, I believe, is that the ATI does not have enough mass to damp the vertical forces and vibrations in bending on the crank snout.
Or that's what Chris' pictures lead me to believe.
First, there's been a LOT of finger pointing (not by Capt) at Ford and 'Detroit Balance', etc. There's also been somewhat an irrational disbelief that ATI couldn't have *anything* to do with the failure. I'd like to point out a few simple things that help *me* to believe that there was nothing wrong going on in the crankcase side of his engine. The first thing is that there wasn't a primary failure *inside* the engine. If there were issues with balance, I would expect a failure propagating from one of the fillet areas of one of the journals. Second, the failure was all the way out at the snout. So I don't see how a balance issue goes from inside the crankcase through the OPG and past the timing chain drive...only then to destroy the snout. Just doesn't make sense to me.
So if we just look at the front cover items, there's the OPG, timing gear, and the ATI damper. So far, I haven't seen any reason to 'blame' the OPG, or the higher amplitude of forces and jerk coming form the valvetrain side...
Deductive reasoning leaves one thing square in the bulls-eye.
Okay, so what, Grant?
I don't think the failure was really torsional as presented and argued. Sure, once a crack was formed, it was propagated by normal torsional stress and cycling from valvetrain events. However...the issue, I believe, is that the ATI does not have enough mass to damp the vertical forces and vibrations in bending on the crank snout.
Or that's what Chris' pictures lead me to believe.
Has anyone used the 2018+ Coyote viscous damper? I haven't used one myself, just asking.
Mad Hatter
Gotta go Faster
Hmm... DId not know the 2018+ came with a different damper!
- Thread starter
- #37
captdistraction
GrumpyRacer
The weights of all the 2011-2017 dampers also vary greatly. I don’t know the exact reasoning or how to select one for a given application
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Mad Hatter
Gotta go Faster
Looks like lots of things on the engine are all over the place..... Looking at the intakes, you can see that they have pretty big variations.. Not to mention oil passages on the block etc....
Just reviving an old thread here looking for info. I was thinking about going to an ATI damper since I'm now running higher RPM's with the Ford Performance 3 package on the car - that is until I read about the info the Capt. was getting from Ford Performance.
I just happened to find this little nugget from another forum that was talking about OPG's and dampers in relation to power adders (mostly superchargers). It was an email from Mike Robins at Ford Performance, dated approximately two years before the Capt's issue and statement from Ford.
"The following excerpt is from personal email exchanges from April, 2016. It is posted with permission courtesy Mike Robins, Supervisor, Ford Performance:
:ford:>
This is coming from our engineering team and also the party that inspects every engine we look at that has experienced issues.
Uncontrolled torsional vibrations break the oil pumps.
It is not the oil pump gear material or the heavier oil that breaks the pump.
The large mass of the flywheel /pressure plate or flywheel / torque converter control the torsional vibrations at the rear of the crankshaft. The vibration damper controls them at the front of the engine.
The production vibration damper is designed to work within the production vehicles RPM limit and power level.
At 8000 rpm you are past that limit.
Changing engine internal components and or installing power adders can change damper requirements.
Just installing an aftermarket race damper is not always a fix.
Some aftermarket dampers are not tuned correctly and do not control the torsional vibrations.
Why do Ford Performance and other companies sell oil pumps with steel gears?
The steel gears will survive longer in the harsh conditions of uncontrolled torsional vibrations.
Some of the other components that are subjected to the damaging torsional vibrations are the timing gears and chains.
People that blame the oil pump gears or the timing chain gears and chains as being substandard do not understand the damaging effect of uncontrolled torsional vibrations.
Regarding your ATI damper question, the ATIs seem to be fine, we use them in the Cobra Jets. We've seen issues with other brands I won't name. You can certainly pass the info along! There's no objection on my part as long as the context is fitting, you may even want to paraphrase, etc.
Thanks again!
Best regards,
Mike Robins
Supervisor-Info Center
Ford Performance "
Ford seemed to approve of them then, but I guess have since changed their stance on this? I'm looking to add a flex fuel tune to the package with a 7800 RPM limit. Most of the information I've gathered states that an N/A car with bolt-on's should not need OPG's, but I was thinking an aftermarket damper would be a good idea to keep things in check. Does anyone have any current info or advice on this?
- Thread starter
- #40
captdistraction
GrumpyRacer
Well, I think the damper discussion comes down to this:
The motors are built to balance. The oem damper is spec'ed to deal with a certain range (along with the other components). Going beyond that range can change the dampening requirements and exceed the range suitable for the oem or aftermarket units. I can't fault the ATI damper, but I can't recommend it based on the language from FRPP/FPP. Going forward for me involves ensuring balance is properly done on motors and using a OEM damper (which at that point should be in the range of its capabilities). Short of any manufacturer offering to replace a motor on their dime , then I'll run their damper.
I think that's the mindset with Mike's comments. Its one thing to provide the info and recommendation, but its another when you're providing the info while looking at a pile of dead parts and trying to find where the liability lies.
The motors are built to balance. The oem damper is spec'ed to deal with a certain range (along with the other components). Going beyond that range can change the dampening requirements and exceed the range suitable for the oem or aftermarket units. I can't fault the ATI damper, but I can't recommend it based on the language from FRPP/FPP. Going forward for me involves ensuring balance is properly done on motors and using a OEM damper (which at that point should be in the range of its capabilities). Short of any manufacturer offering to replace a motor on their dime , then I'll run their damper.
I think that's the mindset with Mike's comments. Its one thing to provide the info and recommendation, but its another when you're providing the info while looking at a pile of dead parts and trying to find where the liability lies.
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