Whichever you choose, I would highly recommend having it internally balanced. Expensive, but it helps the engine live longer.

 

Too late I already purchased a professional products/scat 28 oz damper

 

28oz works fine. I would use a scat, at least they used to have a cheap 28oz 3" stroke cast 302 crank. putting $300 of Mallory into a $300 cast crank to go internal seems like a waste of $ to me.

 

Never spend 10 dollars when 10,000 will do......

 

Right, doing anything to prevent the motor from grenading is just silly

28 is better than 50, so I sure as hell won't fault you for that. Have a machine shop put the balancer and flywheel on the crank with some bobweights and spin that sucker up.

Yeah, it's expensive. It's also worth it. $300 would be cheap, the last internal balance job we did was like $800, metal included.

 

point being you are in steel crank territory if you go internal on a cast crank. I don't know about you, but in 20 years of messing with these things I have never seen a well balanced assembly at 28oz negatively effect the bearings, let alone grenade. if you have to go internal to prevent your builds from eating themselves you are doing something wrong. sbc's go internal and still spin bearings. external balance sbf's not so much.

if you are going to turn one past 7k then my preference would be internal as well. but many, many 289s, 302s, 302 strokers, all forms of clevelands and windsors have done it without a problem with a well balanced assembly and cast crank at 28oz. not to mention all the guys who professionally drag and oval tracked clevelands in the 70s and all they had available were 28oz stock cast cranks. point is, by the time you go internal (especially on a cast crank), you could buy something nice like a callies dragonslayer.

besides, with a stock 2 bolt 302 block itll die from cap chatter long before it ever knocks the bearings out from being 28oz.

 

Probe doesnt make any cranks, they were or are rpm or scat. Scat doesnt make any 3 inch stroke cast, no demand I would imagine. Your stuck with old oem cranks, eagle cast or some no name cast junk floating around. 9 times out of 10 the cheap no name cast cranks need to be cut because they are so terribly finished, my experience anywho.

 

Not sure how bearings got brought into it, but OK?

It's not the bearings that fail on cracked blocks.

 

if it were a balance issue it would knock the bearings out of it. broken blocks come from cap chatter. 2 bolt 302s are gonna chatter if run really hard even with a well balanced assembly, whether its balanced at 28 or internal. you think adding several sticks per counterweight and the total weight it brings into the equation sitting on the caps helps reduce chatter?

the balance doesn't change the inherent weakness of the 2 bolt 302, the mains. if it were simply the balance the original boss 302 block would have suffered chatter and block cracking like the 2 bolt stuff. it doesn't. the boss 302 block I had looked really similar to my 71 302 block through the mains, with the exception of the caps. and it had far less cap chatter in the same conditions with the same 28oz crank than my studded 71 block did. maybe it had something to with having doweled 4 bolt caps.

 

Thanks guys, I will more than likely go with the cast Eagle crank externally balanced.

It will be a fairly mild approx. 350HP (I hope) fun driver. I don't see ever taking it to the track, maybe once if the stars align.

There is a local crank shop that will polish and true up the thrust and journal surfaces for $60, they did it to my last Scat 331 stroker crank and the thrust bearing appears to be much happier.

 

I also found this internally balanced forged crank on sale for about the same price as the cast eagle:

FORD RACING SMALL BLOCK FORD 302 FORGED STEEL CRANKSHAFT -- M-6303-E302


It is also an eagle crank, would the forged be better?

Anyone have any experience on the forged crank machining?


I can remove the weight from my damper, I guess the flex plate weight would have to be ground off and 0 - balanced.

 

Alright guys.

I just picked up an Eagle/Ford racing 302 Forged Steel Crankshaft M-6303-E302, internally balanced crank for approx. $240 shipped.

Guess they are having a hard time selling these and are giving them away since everyone is stroking their motors these days. I'm ok with that, I don't need to stroke this motor to get what I need in terms of performance.

Currently my rotating assembly cost is about $800 (less balancing and bearings).

Not too bad, I guess.

 

thats an awesome deal! just make sure everything is right before you run. eagles are notorious for being out of spec. the last one i bought was aweful.