cragar blower drive / no balancer?

My first question on the HAMB! I just purchased a vintage 6-71 blower setup for a SBC. It has a cragar manifold and tensioner. It also came with a steel hub that fits on the crank in place of the stock balancer, then the lower pulley bolts to it. Apparently the drag racers didn't care about the balancer. I'm gonna run a flywheel on this motor, and don't really care about how smooth the motor runs(solid motor mounts). Anyone know about these old setups? Can the motor be run without the balancer? Very little mileage will be put on this motor - going in my 37 plymouth g***er. Would like to hear from someone that has actually run a sbc without a balancer. I used to be into VW's and they don't have a balancer........

 

What I have heard and it seems to make sense is that the blower belt acts as the dampner on the crank. I have a set up I am about to use with out a balancer. I have a double keyed crank hub.

 

We do a number of "blown" units today, and have done so for over 40 years now, and not a single one has a conventional damper/balancer. You don't need it with the "Gilmer" setup!

I would strongly recommend "pre-fitting" all the components in their entirety, including manifold, carbs, linkage, water pump, alternator, and drive setup. Also check beforehand the valve covers you will be using, some blower intakes are "tight" in that area.

We double-key the cranks with a 1/4" key opposite the factory one on both the SB's and the BB's! The factory keys (G.M.'s) are too small.

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. I'll put a few shots here of some recent work! The left photo is a "Blown-Injected 426 Hemi", the center photo is a blown "Keith Black". This one was done some years ago! The right one is a "B&M" blown "Flathead".

 

The manifold looks like a Cragar but the drive looks like a Delta. Very cool.

 

I believe that drive is a Pete's setup (Pete's Engineering). They are similar to Delta but doesn't have an adjustable length snout.

 

I did a little reading and talking to people before setting up my first and only blown motor. I believe the blower belt takes care of the harmonics, so you can use a crank hub. Knowing this, I still fitted an SFI spec damper so if I'm out on the road and I break a belt I can keep driving my overfuelled, low comp motor with no concerns about damaging it. If it was a race car, I'd just run a crank hub. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

The stock dampers will break they are cast and its usually reccommended to double key the crank aswell