Bookwus wrote:Hiya Paul,
Hmmmmmm............I don't think that one has to get too exotic if considering a counterweighted crank. I have a friend who recently built an engine for his Bus. Although the engine is in a stock configuration he did use a counterweighted crank from CBPerformance. It was simply a bolt-in kind of affair. Used the regular bearings.
But perhaps I'm misreading. Are you considering building a real fire-breather?
This will be the first air cooled I've built, so I'm aiming for a mid to upper range street engine. Now that I've thought about it, the 4340 pro street with the normal flywheel flange should be about right. Main reason for wanting a counterweighted crank is because I like freeway driving, but it pains me to think of crank flex hammering the main journals. It would be nice to sail along at 75 knowing that everything is in balance and spinning happily, and that sustained cruising speeds will not unduly shorten engine life.
In regards to a fire-breather, probably not the first engine. I usually have wonderful first-time success though. My first car I rebuilt using the engine from my mother's wrecked Plymouth, and it was undefeated for almost two years on the street. When I got my driver's license back, we took it to Milan Dragway and it came home with the winner's check on the first visit. The car was retired after the 1983 Grand Nationals at Detroit Dragway. There was not much to muck around with, performance-wise, after getting married. When we did get my current daily driver, I was told that there was nothing that could be done to get more power out of it, even by multi-million dollar speed equipment companies. But I went ahead and did it anyway. The result is a nicely equipped daily driver, which also happens to be the fastest one of it's type in the world on the dragstrip, despite being intended for road course racing.
Sooo, if and when I do go the fire-breathing route, it should be a fun ride :;):
Paul
