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Is Balance shaft elimination a bad idea on a daily Driver?

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Norcalgsx707

10+ Year Contributor
564
0
Jun 28, 2012
lake county, California
So I got my car on some racks and I have the thing apart, the timing belt is off the oil Assembly and pump are out, oil pan plus the transfer case anyhting I should inspect and is it worth doing a balance elimination kit on a daily driver ?? I have all stage one mods minus a built head and cams..
 
Interesting. So if that were the case, one would want to let the damper cool off with the engine idling?

Purely speculation on my part here, but I would imagine that does not hurt.

Much like spinning a tire at high speed after you just a can of fix-a-flat into it :D

This is what I was intending to do after extended pulls if I felt it necessary. I've not read where this has been employed against it.
 
So to ask the question again LOL is it possible to do with the engine in the car, and since the engine will be flowing more oil can that create problems? wouldn't it be wise to compensate for that extra oil?

I did mine on my 99 with the engine in. I undid the driver's side engine mount and took out the cross member/front engine mount and that angled it down enough to do it. I rented a tool from Autozone to press the bearings in and out. I think for the back bearing on the front shaft I used the balance shaft itself to punch the bearing out and press it in. The front bearing is a bigger diameter than the back one so I just flipped the shaft around to do it. I was careful to not destroy the bearings when I did it so I reused the bearings. I just turned them so the oil holes didn't line up. Then I put a stubby shaft in that has the oil groove in it where the back shaft was, and put it together. It's been running that way for about 15K miles, drive it 120 miles a day, car has 255k on it, runs fine. I don't even notice any extra vibration.
 
The balance shafts are only connected to the crank by what is basically a rubber band.

They are, however, connected by the block them self, or more accurately, the part between the BS bearings and the crankshaft(bearings) on both sides.

The rubber band only make them spin. Thats the way I see some truth in this anway.

Maybe Jack can shine his light on this? Since he is the one with the hands-on experience and making this statement. He is around here sometimes, right?
 
They are, however, connected by the block them self, or more accurately, the part between the BS bearings and the crankshaft(bearings) on both sides.

The rubber band only make them spin. Thats the way I see some truth in this anway.

Maybe Jack can shine his light on this? Since he is the one with the hands-on experience and making this statement. He is around here sometimes, right?

The belt absorbs vibration and energy, in a similar fashion as a damper does.

The shafts also float on a film of oil that accepts and cushions their non-axisymmetric mass distribution.

The balance shafts introduce more energy and more vibration into the engine, but in a manner that simply hides it from cabin occupants.

Jack is not the only person getting his hands dirty with these motors. He is also the only one I've found that has floated this theory. Ask someone like Marco what he thinks about BSE.

Having two lopsided, heavy rods spinning twice crankshaft speed is trouble waiting to happen. The Engineers at Mitsubishi even created an OEM deletion that did not require re-designing and re-tooling for a new block.
 
This weekend I came across this article from Jack @ Jackstransmissions;

Keep Your Balance Shafts!

Ever heard of this increasing torsional whip before? Or is it a "new" insight on the matter of BSE?

I was just about to post this.. If Jack says this after years and years of tearing apart trannys and motors and rebuilding them, then I'd certainly listen if you are considering removing balance shafts.
 
The DSM Balance Shafts have no affect on Torsional Whip, and Chris is correct in his statements above.

Regardless of the incorrect information stated in the article, I've found over working on these engines daily for the last 15 years that no 4G63 runs long without an intact timing belt or oil pump.

If you want to replace your balance shafts/balance shaft bearings every once in a while (before they take themselves out), aerate and heat your oil more, and have another possible (and after time, "likely") failure point in the engine, by all means, keep your balance shafts.

"Titty Sprinkles"
 
Hello all! Thought I would spend some time to chime in here...

I made the page on our site for our customers considering an engine build from us. I did not expect it to explode all over the web and with so many comments. It is merely there to allow the customer to make an educated decision as to keep or remove their balance shafts.

We are not a company which caters to the 1% which want a car built to run in the single digits. We cater to the average person and many road racers. Those of us who want a car that we can drive every day, and then take it to the track for some fun is what we are all about. Due to this we have become very successful and what we do seems to work quite well. We don't break any records because that's not what we do. We just build cars which will work and live a very long service life.

Due to the fact that our customers are just average people, we want them to have an engine which they will love. A smooth engine on the street is a very nice thing to have and many customers appreciate this. Most builders don't care about the comfort factor and will build you the same loud and buzzy engine for the car that is daily driven as they do for their race cars. We don't believe this is appropriate.

You are free to make your own decisions as to what you want to do with your engine. We are not forcing anyone to do anything and are more than happy to build anything you want.

Good luck to all with your 4G63 adventures! :)

Jack
 
Hello all! Thought I would spend some time to chime in here...

I made the page on our site for our customers considering an engine build from us. I did not expect it to explode all over the web and with so many comments. It is merely there to allow the customer to make an educated decision as to keep or remove their balance shafts.

We are not a company which caters to the 1% which want a car built to run in the single digits. We cater to the average person and many road racers. Those of us who want a car that we can drive every day, and then take it to the track for some fun is what we are all about. Due to this we have become very successful and what we do seems to work quite well. We don't break any records because that's not what we do. We just build cars which will work and live a very long service life.

Due to the fact that our customers are just average people, we want them to have an engine which they will love. A smooth engine on the street is a very nice thing to have and many customers appreciate this. Most builders don't care about the comfort factor and will build you the same loud and buzzy engine for the car that is daily driven as they do for their race cars. We don't believe this is appropriate.

You are free to make your own decisions as to what you want to do with your engine. We are not forcing anyone to do anything and are more than happy to build anything you want.

Good luck to all with your 4G63 adventures! :)

Jack

I was waiting for you to chime on in this. Thanks for sharing with us, and I enjoyed the write-up.. it makes sense.
 
It does help to have balance shafts at idle and low rpm. If you don't have a well balance bottom end, it will vibrate pretty bad especially when you are using solid urethane motor mount.

Unless you are using oem balance shaft bearings and can drive the bearings in perfectly during a rebuild, you better not even try to use the balance shafts. You will be sorry.

If you are doing balance shaft elimination. Order the straight cuts oil pump gears from Extremepsi.com or from the dealer. Make sure you debur the oil pump gears with 1000-2000 grits paper. If you don't debur the gears or use the helical oil pump gears, you will risk killing your oil pump case and send trash into your engine. Do not trust the oil filter to filter any trash pull it or sent out by a failing oil pump. The best way to test if you did a good job deburring the gears is to press the against the case and spin them. If you can shave aluminum with the gears, you need more work.
 
From personal experience. Ive not had balance shafts for 15 years. No problems here, same engine.
 
If remove the balance shaft belt with out putting in the removal kit and leavening the balance shaft in will it work and keep the oil pressure down
 
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