The crank is pretty solidly balanced from the factory, I wouldn't worry too much about balancing that, but with new pistons, rings, and hopefully shot peened and arp rod bolted rods, you'll prolly want to balance those. Its not hard, you can do it yourself. Bascially just make sure they weight the same (plus or minus 1/10th of a gram) by weighing the rod-piston assembly on an accurate scale and grinding the weight of a die grinder so they all weigh the same amount as the lightest one. I wouldn't worry to much about forged stuff, it can get expensive, and that engine is already prolly a pretty penny. For a tranny, a GsR or B16 hydro would be your best best (hopefully w/LSD) as they'll be at least 3 or 4 hundred dollars cheaper that a type r. Overall though, a type r is best, but maybe not that much better. Is it worth it or not? How much are you spending? If you are considering buying a LsVtec build, I've got one for sale, that is just slightly more solid than this (type r cams, arp bolts, girdle etc etc) that I'm trying to sell for cheap. e-mail me at
kanga_rod@hotmail.com if you are intrested.