[blykins]

Ted,

The only replacement friction plates I can get would be for a McLeod, RAM, or Fidanza flywheel. The Fidanza aluminum wheels that I sell have multiple pressure plate patterns on them....11", 11.5", and 12". Your 11.75" is either an 11.5" or a 12".

I have seen a few engines where instead of whacking a counterweight off, the flywheel was made with a particular imbalance. However, that's not the right way of doing things.

FE crankshafts are either internally balanced (390 and 427) or externally balanced (428). The entire rotating assembly was balanced with a 428 flywheel, so just put another 428 flywheel on it.

I would not disassemble a complete engine just to change flywheels. I hope that you don't plan on doing that.

Bottom line is you have 3 options: 1. Reuse the cast iron flywheel. 2. Use the aluminum flywheel. In that case, I'd have it weight checked against the iron 428 flywheel. 3. Buy a new flywheel, with a 28oz imbalance.

When you balance a rotating assembly, you don't alter the flywheel to match the rotating assembly (unless like I said above, where the case is totally original and hacked up). You remove/add weight to the crankshaft depending on the bobweight and the balancer/flywheel that you use. You use either a 0 balance flywheel or a 28oz flywheel.

Again, please don't take apart a good engine just to have it rebalanced with another flywheel.