Interesting find with my Gen VI 502s circa 1998. The balance holes and the timing mark are in different places. Shouldn’t they be identical? The bottom ends on these have never been touched.

Port engine:




Starboard engine:




Notice the timing marks are over different balance holes. Anyone seen this before?

Balancer slipped in the rubber would be my thought.

Look at the pic... not a slippage issue.

The mark is placed differently on the ring.

The holes will be different from damper to damper due to manufacturing tolerances. The only way to see if the mark is correct is to find TDC with a TDC stop and check it. Neither of those look like the ring has slipped event though the one in the bottom picture looks like the rubber is bulging out a bit more than usual.

These both have well under 500 hours. I was going to replace them both because they’re not all that nice to look at.

I verified TDC on the port engine with a bridge and dial indicator. I have the heads off that one already.

The rubber looks like it has splits in it. Time to get new, I just replaced mine with a decent SFI rated piece from JEGS.