hey, i have a 99 lude, base, 5spd, and got done doing the timing belt, tensioner/bearing and some other stuff, was a lil tough but got everything done alright, the thing is, I think I tightened the balancer belt a lil too tight but it still has good slack, but I can hear it a lil bit, is this something to worry about or will it eventually loosen up?

 

just take the balancer belt off. you dont need it and its good for about 12 hp

 

yeah but you will screw up yur motor, it will shake itself loose w/the vibrations

 

Hey Preylude99,

Woow, you're really doing a lot to your car!! My car still makes a little noise from the timing belt tensioner replacement. Did you car make the Grrrr noise? That guy says you don't need the balance shaft belts, is this true? It would be great if you could free up some horsepower without running the balance shafts. Has anyone done this?? If so, how did it work oout? I'd be interested in doing this next time I have the timing belt replaced. Preylude99, do you do this work yourself. If so, how hard was it to accomplish?? How long did it take lyou?


Nick

 

Don't remove your counter balance belt. When you remove it the engine has horrible vibration. The counter balancer is a shaft that moves the oposite direction of the crank shaft to make the engine run smoothly. If you remove you belt the engine will run very rough and this usually results in crank shaft bearings breaking. It is not a good idea to remove this in search of HP, if you want HP remove some weight or your power steering.

 

oh i know, ive already heard about the cons of doing this, so I will not. I wonder if the noise I am hearing could be from the fact that this is a new timing belt, its kinda like a wooooo sound when i just mildly rev in neutral...... around 1-2K rpms

 

i have yet to find any proof of crank bearing problems. the balance shafts are there to reduce vibration at idle.

 

yeah but someone on the h22a.org forums was talking about a specific thing to do when you remove your counter balance belt, and I forgot what it was, it was to make it to where you did not have the belt, nor the vibration. But if you have excessive vibration at idle w/o the counter balance belt, wont the engine shake itself loose? its on there for a reason, however, the reason may be most people are jus anal about having a smooth car....I have to research it more.....

 

the balancer shafts are designed to reduce "second order vibrations"

in layman's terms... they reduce engine vibration to increase comfort.

many older 4 bangers dont have counterbalancer shafts, and they dont shake themselves apart nor spin main bearings/rod bearings as someone else suggested.

as they are designed only to increase driver comfort, there is no other detriment to removing the belt other than decreasing driver comfort.

i havent run balancer shafts in my H22 for over 3 years. i dropped the H23 VTEC setup into my car about 6 months ago, and i left off the balancer belt in this case also.

 

i have put around 8k miles on my already 100k mile old f22a with out the balancer belt. i beat the shit out of the car daily with no problems.. well at least none related to the balancers haha