[Caprimaniac]

The balance/ imbalance, crank balancing and crankshaft balancer topic is coming together, then... (Very easy to mix them up!)

Sorry for hijacking the thread.. but... been thinking of this for some time:

Jerry, or anyone with insight on the topic, do you have any input on weight of balancer? Take ATI as an example. They have steel, steel aluminium and all aluminium dampers. Weight of alu dampers are roughly 1/2 of the steel ones.

On a performance engine turning 7- 8000 rpms with "good" , balanced, internals would you see any downsides of using a lightweight aluminium balancer?

My thoughts are: With a heavier the outer ring of the balancer the smaller the tendency for the crankshaft to bend or twist at speed. But, if hard accelerating or braking, a greater twisting force applied by the heavy weight balancer.
Also: Are the heavy balancer a trick from the thoughts of having a steady idle and low rpm torque? (Likewise for a heavy flyywheel.)

RS