What I have is a bored 454 with an 8-71 with supporting internals and heads on the engine...it started life as a 525 sc

I am in need of a flywheel...I have a missing tooth on the ring gear

Should I just get a stock replacement or is there a better option?

The motor was balanced by the last builder with the flywheel so I'm not sure if the stock merc flywheel would be neutral balanced or not so I have to take that into consideration

Id buy a ring gear heat it up and put it on.

Like mentioned above, tap the old ring off, heat the new on the gas grill and slide it on, quick, easy and inexpensive.

454 flywheel is not neutral balanced plus you dont know if the engine builder did anything to it while balancing. Like the others said get a new ring gear. It is easy to replace but if you dont feel good about it have your machine shop do it. You can knock the old one off, its not too hard but will require some force. Heat the new one up in your oven to 500 degrees and it will drop right on.

Sounds good...any opinions on where to get a new one? Is that something hardin or someone would carry?

Full disclosure I paid the machine shop to do this and they never did..one of many screw ups of theirs if you haven't seen any of my other threads lol

That being said thanks for the tip on replacing the ring gear myself...didn't realize it was that easy and I refuse to talk to them about anything anymore so I would have had this whole thing rebalanced...thanks guys!!

make sure you get the correct tooth count....168 ?

Yea I suppose I should count the teeth to make 100% sure thanks!

Is there anything specific about the merc flywheel or will any 168 tooth(if that's indeed what it is) bbc ring gear work?

https://www.jegs.com/i/Pioneer/787/FRG168S/10002/-1

like this one? assuming its the right tooth count of course