1. "Are the witness marks always at the same location on the cranks from different engines and vintages? If they are not always at the same position, matching marks from different engines is pointless." Each engine is balanced different. Even more so using a flywheel from a four cylinder on a five banger. The only time you need a witness is if you plan on reinstalling the flywheel on the same engine. You MUST have the flywheels match balanced. If you have no other choice (like I did) then just install the 240 wheel heavy-side to -heavy side. Look at where they drilled the most metal off the wheel for balance on the auto wheel. install the manual wheel with all the drill points as close as possible to where the other was bolted. If you do this, you should get it fixed ASAP or you risk taking out the main bearings.

2. "Were the automatic equipped engines balanced with just the flywheel (drive plate) or with the flywheel and torque converter?" Only the drive plate is balanced. The fluid neutrally balances the Tq converter automaticly (pun intended).

3. "If the answer to 1. is yes, and I just simply match the marks, I am hopping that the balancing needs of my 1982 engine match those from an engine made 2 years later. Is this not unlikely?" As I said, the chances of finding two flywheels balanced exactly the same is 1:1,000,000. I was not able to match balance my wheels due to time constraints. While it does not shake the engine out of the car, it does have a noticable vibration at idle and specific highway speeds. I don't plan on fixing this because my engine idles like cr@p and smokes when cold. When this engine finally decides to go *boom* (from the internal mystery tapping) or refuse to start one day, i'll balance the wheel to the replacment engine.

BTW, i love the body color and rim combo.