Final Word on Balance Shaft Removal Performance

[Chris Doss]

Went through all posts about this topic and am not real clear. Let's put everything aside (covered many times) and just look at performance (not so clear).

I'm not interested in links to people like RRE who sell sh_t or anyone else who profit from kits. If you've done it, did you gain power from it?

Other auto communities I've been in spend a lot of time on dynos, every mod out there has plenty of people on dynos seeing what they got out of it. I don't see many dyno results in the DSM arena though and am wondering if any one here has dynoed this particular mod. Even if you didn't, did you really notice any difference?

Appreciate your input.

 

[kenamond]

Removing the balance shaft won't add hp. Neither will carbon fiber driveshafts, lightweight flywheels, etc. It just reduces the rotational mass of the motor which improves how quickly the engine will rev or unrev. You'll get a tiny improvement in acceleration as well, but I'm not sure if you'd even notice it. If you do a constant rpm on a dyno, I can't see why you'd get any more or less hp. That's my 0.02.

 

[MyÜberFastGSX]

Ok so, balance shaft removal isn't a performance mod in the sense that you would look on the dyno numbers for results. Kind of like a cold air intake. It won't show up on the dyno, it will lower your intake temperatures so that your engine runs better.

Balance shaft removal will do a couple of things:

1. If the belt on the balance shaft breaks while your in a hard pull, your engine will likely expload as my friends last engine did.

2. The balance shaft froths the oil, which causes multiple problems.

I'm sure that you already know all of this as you've already read all of the forums on BSR. But I hope that this was of some help.

 

[Chris Doss]

Thanks a lot for the response. My thinking was that by reducing the parastic loss from running this belt off the crank, I'd see something to the wheels (like underdrive pullies). Right now, based on these responses, I'm thinking I'm not going to mess with it as I am putting in a low mileage engine into the car (40k) and plan to move on to something else in the next year or two (likely a VR4) anyway. Love the DSM though, my second one....

CD

 

[dsmspike]

I would remove them personally. Like was said before it gets rid of that ballance shaft belt that if it breaks then you're screwed badly cause it will take the timing belt with it. On top of that your engine will turn rpm's quicker because of the loss of rotational mass. the motor's already out man. You might as well do it. It's easy to do it with the motor out and in my eyes it's def. worth it.
Spike

 

[phillip]

Also easy setup for siezed balance shafts, if your gonna re-gasket everything like im at the moment, might as well do a little mod.

 

[RayPeters]

Pull them if you can, I can't say its any faster with or without them, but I watched a friends RH drive Evo III Open class Rally car burn to the ground because the front balance shaft bearing seized, broke the block behind the turbo, and the hot turbo manifold caught the oil on fire. I can provide photos of this one, I still have the engine (the parts that didn't melt away) at my shop. The hole in the block is not quite big enough to get your hand through, and half of the balance shaft bearing is in the peice that is missing.

 

[dsmspike]

^^^ Oh man that had to suck really bad.

 

[91tsi2wd]

obvious statement of the year. ^^^^

 

[kenamond]

Just to clarify, I was just commenting on hp gains. Sorry if it came across as saying he shouldn't do it.

 

[MyÜberFastGSX]

That's the same thing that happened to my friend, but his car didn't burn down because the the whole in the block was in the front.

 

[luvmygst]

In a sense you do gain HP. Say your motor is making 250hp at the crank at 7000 rpm. It takes say 10hp to turn the balance shafts at 7000rpm. With them gone you now have 260hp. Not to mention the added oil pressure you will gain by taking them out. I think its well worth the little effort while the motor is out/ I removed mine for less than $2.00 I bought a freeze plug and a bolt. I took the front bearings out and turned them around, and cut the back shaft off and welded the hole shut. The reason I would say no one has a dyno sheet for this is when your far enough in to pull tthem out you usually do something else also. Just my .02