A.T.I. balancer

[Z-linkCobra]

Just found out some interesting info this morning. I bought an ATI balancer for my small block ford. On the front of the balancer are 3 holes for bolting up the usual stuff. I ordered a drive mandrel for the oil pump and alternator last week. Got the drive mandrel and pulleys in yesterday and when I went to put it on the balancer...the holes wont line up.

Come to find out the register on the front of the balancer is for small block chevy..not small block Ford. No big deal really...Jones Racing Products will swap out the drive mandrel for me so all is good.

The point of the post is make sure you check your bolt register on the front of your balancer before you order anything for it...if your in the building process that is.

Luckily I hadnt ordered my crank trigger set up for a Ford as well...that would have been a bummer....but now I know.


Just thought I would share that info.

Gene

[Jerry Clayton]

Oh yeh---the ATI 3 bolt dampner for Fords that have Chevy bolt pattern---
And the chevy pulleys aren't the correct back spacing to line up with Ford water pumps or alternators

I have had several dicussions with the ATI folks about this---and it didn't go very well--however one guy did offer to make custom set up for me----I carefully and as policticly correct as I could explained how much I liked there dampner but that if I was going to have someone build a setup just for me, I would probably get hundreds of them and they would see there ford sales go away


They , who are into dampening vibrations, have no clue that an uncentered pulley or drive system will cause a terrific harmonic that there dampner won't handle

Kind of goes back to the old "We been doing it this way for 30 years"

[Z-linkCobra]

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

Oh yeh---the ATI 3 bolt dampner for Fords that have Chevy bolt pattern---
And the chevy pulleys aren't the correct back spacing to line up with Ford water pumps or alternators

I have had several dicussions with the ATI folks about this---and it didn't go very well--however one guy did offer to make custom set up for me----I carefully and as policticly correct as I could explained how much I liked there dampner but that if I was going to have someone build a setup just for me, I would probably get hundreds of them and they would see there ford sales go away


They , who are into dampening vibrations, have no clue that an uncentered pulley or drive system will cause a terrific harmonic that there dampner won't handle

Kind of goes back to the old "We been doing it this way for 30 years"

Jerry, www.jonesracingproducts.com has water pump pulleys with different back spacing as well as all kinds of spacers and shims. The guys at Jones are pretty sharp and know their stuff.

Gene

[Jerry Clayton]

yes they do---but if ATI would just use the ford pattern everybody could save hundreds of dollars---not to mention the ones who just file out the holes a little or even those who use the chev pulleys and don't have good alignment and then toss a belt and overheat along the road

IF ATI would change there specs -----

[Z-linkCobra]

Im with you on that. The guys at Jones tell me that up untill 2 yrs ago ATI only did the chevy bolt register on the front. 2 yrs ago they started offering the the ford pattern as well....so now its really confusing.

[Jerry Clayton]

The Ford pattern is the 4 bolt years---and the 4 bolt /3 bolt years had different backspacings---people take and drill a little larger or rat tail file the bolt holes to fit but it doesn't center on the hub and there is run out causing vibrations and belt tension problems