And so it begins...

[Crazyswede]

if you are referring to the harmonic balancer.....I think I found that the harmonic balancer off of a 16v engine fit the B motor. I may be wrong.

[Luke]

I think the "nose" is a different length on the two pulleys. Also about shaving an unused sheave off to save weight, I tried that once and the pulley only last a couple weeks. It seems there was not enough friction area left on the rubber and the thing split apart. Maybe the better way to do it would be to turn the pulley down, but leave a small ring of metal at the base to provide enough surface area for the rubber.
There is also that damper-doctor guy.

[GRMPer]

I'm contacting harmonicdampers.com to see what they have too.

they've got these listings:
http://www.bhjdynamics.com/index.php?ma ... x&cPath=24

[GRMPer]

if you are referring to the harmonic balancer.....I think I found that the harmonic balancer off of a 16v engine fit the B motor. I may be wrong.

Hmmm. Can you confirm?

[Jordan]

I think the "nose" is a different length on the two pulleys. Also about shaving an unused sheave off to save weight, I tried that once and the pulley only last a couple weeks. It seems there was not enough friction area left on the rubber and the thing split apart. Maybe the better way to do it would be to turn the pulley down, but leave a small ring of metal at the base to provide enough surface area for the rubber.
There is also that damper-doctor guy.

Could you maybe drill and put roll pins through the rubber? or would that totally defeat its dampening ability? I don't know if it is really worth worrying about the HB anyway if you are thinking of using a Turbo! The (!) is essential in the saab community

[GRMPer]

even more pics posted. You'd think we were a Saab magazine or something.

[Geoff]

I'm almost positive the ID of the 16V and B engine pulleys are the same but I'm pretty sure the depth of the "nose" (as Luke calls it) - the part that sticks out and goes under the oil seal is a different length. Maybe the 16v one is longer and could be trimmed?

I'd just get the stock one rebuilt and leave it at that.

[99Super]

They are different. The B201/202 pulley (why do you guys call it a balancer??) has a shorter "nose" than a B20 due to the thinner timing chain and oil pump. There is at least one place that will repair the dissolving rubber, I'll try to find the link...

I'd bet money we could pull the steel pulleys and rubber off the base and press on aluminum pulleys.

john

[Jordan]

They are different. The B201/202 pulley (why do you guys call it a balancer??) has a shorter "nose" than a B20 due to the thinner timing chain and oil pump. There is at least one place that will repair the dissolving rubber, I'll try to find the link...

I'd bet money we could pull the steel pulleys and rubber off the base and press on aluminum pulleys.

john

The cast iron base and rubber ring act to dampen torsional stress and stress caused by vibrational resonance (Harmonic Balancer). Everything I've read has suggested that removing the HB for a solid pulley risks engine longevity for nominal gains in performance.

[99Super]

Not to be obtuse here, but where did you read this? I've never seen anything anywhere (besides lists like this) that suggest that the crank pulley (the name in all SAAB literature) is anything more than just that. If it were a true V8 style harmonic balancer, there would be a a series of offset weights, etc., to balance any harmonic vibrations that could concievably break a crank. I see no evidence of this in our pulleys...

john

[Crazyswede]

I have always known it to be called a harmonic balancer. The rubber between the inner and outer parts must be there for a reason....I would suspect to help reduce small amounts of vibration of one sort or another. Possibly to help cushion the loads on the crank when the power steering pump or alternator increase there loads on the belts.

[Hans]

FWIW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_balancer

[99Super]

Again, what's being damped here Seth, and where? Cushioning small amounts of vibration is far from harmonic balancing. Saab does that on 2.3 engines w/ balance shafts.

I've been using reduced mass pulleys for years now on my engines and have yet to have a failure of any sort. If I were running a SBC, I'd have one, sure...

I'd pay to see a broken B20 crankshaft and the remains of the engine it belonged to.

Anyway, none of that is importatnt, just so Per knows he needs a B20 pulley, not a B201/202 pulley.

john

[Jordan]

I use the two terms synonymously for most cars and if there is the rubber insert in a crank pulley, which is something I've always seen, I call it a harmonic balancer. I wouldn't think counterweights affect possible resonance, they are there more for torsional loads that are generated by the design of the v8 engine,which is obviously different than the slant four...but that would just be a guess. As for the mass portion, I would think that the flywheel would provide sufficiently... maybe somebody with some varied engine building experience could shed some light on the subject.

Due to the strength of the SAAB crank and number of bearings I'd guess you would probably be ok for quite awhile using an undampened pulley, but there is the whole "is the performance gain worth the risk" argument.

[GRMPer]

Yea, and it's only $79.95 to have the pulley rebuilt. It's going out today to DamperDoctor.com in Redding, CA.

Tore the spare engine down. Very, very odd. Head is clean as a whistle, transmission has clearly been removed, but the shortblock is full of carbon/cooked oil/crap and the bearings are wiped out. So...it's off to the machine shop to see if the crank is saveable and how much the block needs to be bored.