Is anyone running no balance shafts in their motors? Ive heard of it being done but wasnt sure how smooth they run with out them. Mines also has a lightened knife edge crank so maybe it wouldnt make much of a difference if the werent on their.
thanks
-Ken

 

Balance shafts have been deleted on my car, knifed crank and balanced internals smooth as stock.

 

If I am not mistaken, there was thread or two on this by Scott Gomes and TonyG (with Tony referring to JME too). I believe, but don't quote me, both had different view points on this. But if you do a search on "balance shaft delete", you'll find the threads I think. Maybe someone can re-post the threads for you. And by the way Spydey, where you live in NJ? Look at my sig, maybe we live close to eachother?

David: Did you buy a delete kit or block them off for good? I know Scott sells a delete kit.

 

Mine was welded closed, no turning back

 

I have one of Scott's kits, it worked fine and was smooth.

 

I spoke to Scott a while ago about this for my car. And according to him, if I recall correctly, he said it's even more crucial to do it with lightened internals. He said if I wanted to test it, just take the belt off and that would give me an idea. I need to find that damn thread and post it. I've never used that feature yet, so I don't know how too. Can anyone help out Spyderman and post it? It was 2 fairly long threads, I believe.

 

I think I am going to yank mine out. I should have done it when I rebuilt my engine, but then again I should have done A LOT of things when I rebuilt my engine. . .

 

I read a lot on this trying to decide what to do. Basically to summarise:

The car feels smooth even without the balance shafts but some people say that is because the engine mounts absorb the vibration but that there is a lot of it. The engine itself sees it all and apparently the oil pick-up pipe is the first to fail, fracturing where it mounts to the block and sucking air rather than oil. The vibration is supposed to be bad around 3,000 to 3,500 rpm which in a street car (or even a street driven car) is right where the engine runs at cruise.

Second consideration is that the shafts are sized to balance the stock crank and rods. If you lighten and knife-edge then they will no longer be the correct size and at some point they will do more harm than good. Whether it is possible to get to that point by lightening and balancing I do not know, but they no longer balance as intended if the crank is lightened.

Overall I decided to leave things alone and only had my crank etc. balanced with just the clutch and flywheel lightened but that's because my car gets driven on the road as well as track. For a track only car where the revs are constantly changing or held much higher than 3,500 it's a good mod.

The above is what I took out of reading the threads a search turned up around 18 months ago. Others may of course have interpreted the discussion differently.

 

thanks for the replies, ill have to try to find those other threads and take a look at them. and by the way rolexnj, Im from north Haledon, but I work in chatham, so im right near ya

 

Loads of Jersey boys chiming into this thread, so I figured I would pay my dues. Princeton New Jersey represented here!

 

That is what I heard also, I can report, 20K miles without B-shafts, I have seen no problems with parts or vibrations at any rpm. Now will it fall to pieces at 25K miles ??? we will see.

This is with a lightened and balance bottom end, stock bottom end might be another story and I would tend to leave the shafts installed untill such a time the bottom end was to be modified.

 

Yes, we have some NJ people on this thread, very kool. Sooner or later we should all hook up. Maybe a dyno day somewhere too? Maybe sometime in the early fall, October/November? Some food for thought. Anyway, I need to find those threads and re-post them for Spyderman.

David: Thanks for the real-life input too, that's very helpful.

 

Thats a good idea. I'll be in Philadelphia from late Septemeber to March, but I'll drive back to Jersey for that for sure.

 

yes, welcome to new jersey, where the weak are killed and eaten. gotta love jersey