Got my crank, rods, etc back yesterday...
Crank has two new heavy-metal (tungsten?) plugs, one on the first counterweight, one on the last. The machinist said, and I quote, "We had to use every piece of bobweight we owned, and then we were worried that the rods were long enough to handle those weights." "Thats one heavy SOB." Flywheel and balancer were not touched.
Rods were a pain from what I was told. Heaviest rod had a sizable amount of metal removed from the big end just to get it within range of the other seven (it was ~24g heavier for some reason). Seven rods had metal removed from the small ends, and six had metal removed from the large ends. In the end, all the rods came out to 1168g. Very nice.
Pistons werent touched. Didnt have to be. They were all within one gram of 1272. Again, very nice.
If you run different rods, dont mess around, get the crank balanced.
So I ask again, does anyone know GM's range of acceptability when it comes to OEM balance weight? Are they ok with a rotating assy being off 15-20+ grams across the entire crank? Could be a reason some cranks break while others dont.
The crank those rods came off of is still running great. They have seen 4800+ before without missing a beat lol.