CAUTION: Removing the engine balance shaft and belt

[seth98esT]

think about the question you just asked about just cutting the belt.. if we could do that and get away with it then the belt breaking wouldnt be a big deal and no1 would have the belt on there.

i personally am keeping mine on my current motor as like brian said its a bitch to remove it correctly with the motor in the car, but the new motor will have no balance shafts

I removed mine with the motor in the car. I had to pull out the front shaft half way and cut it in half, then pull out the second half lol.

Also, had about 30k miles on my motor(4g63t) before I parked it and pulled the motor to put into another car.

[mygalantwasfree]

I just pulled the top of the timing cover off my Galant today to have a look at the belts' condition. I pushed on the belt to the right and below the camshaft sprocket to see how much slack it has. The belt gives...almost an inch I would say. Is this too much play?

[Shadow19]

the engine will be that unblanced no matter what. The balance shafts are there for you to be comfortable. ASE certified tire changer tells you that bullshit and you believe him? Im sorry. Its bullshit. Ive had my balance shafts out for 30k miles and im no granny driver and i havent had an issue yet.. Argue that shit somewhere else.

[mygalantwasfree]

Oh btw update on timing belt slack. Got out a ruler. Turns out it was right where it needed to be at 1/3 of an inch!
I was just being paranoid.

Shadow19: he's not a tire changer. That technician is my best friend I've known him since I was like 6, it's not like I just went up and asked some random mechanic about it. We worked on cars together in the same garage for years. I do trust his opinion; He's not trying to sell me auto services because he knows that I can do it myself. I do automotive work all the time and whenever I run into something I'm not quite sure about I'll ask him about it, and 99% he's right on the money.

This case with Mitsubishi's 2.4L SOHC engine seems to be a bit different though. Usually (in other engines) those shafts do serve a more crucial purpose.

[xd_01]

its definetily debatable, big race shops and average DSM'ers have had good results with out them and shops like Jackson Auto, and AMS have good results with them. they sell removal kits that retain much of the orginal shaft. but the argument isnt about harmonics, its more of oil pump failure. its said that eliminating the lower shaft will cause the oil pump gears to wear pre-maturely and cause failure. for example i know the AMS a kit eliminates the belt and uppper shaft but has a lathe down lower shaft which eliminates the balance lobe but retains the end which is basically a bearing, so whole shaft is still in place with no lobe and wont "twirl" (for lack of a better word) around like the stubby shaft is said to do. the twirling or unbalanced stubby shaft is what will cause pre-mature oil pump failure. BUT the funny thing is that even though Mitsu engineered these things to be in place they also sell a balance shaft ELIMINATION kit lol, go figure.

either way you shouldnt start a topic like this and give advice if you yourself dont know how they operate lol, and you own a repair company lol oh lord

personaly im on the fence about them but on my old stock motor when i did the 60k timing belt change i didnt hesitate to retain the balance shafts. i also had a very experienced DSM mechanic do the job so i wasnt worried. i think alot of these failures have alot to do with improper instalation.

BUT on my new motor there completely removed and honestly if this motor makes it to
10k i will be one happy M!@#$%F&*#!R

plus i would rather see my oil pressure gauge drop from a oil pump failure so i atleast i have a chance to shut it down quickly as oppose to a balance shaft bearing spinning or the belt snapping and take out the motor from top to bottom with out warning.

cheaper repair and easier since you dont have to worry about the shafts when you pull pump cover in the car.

[qnz]

David Buschur, one of the premier tuners/engine builders for Evos and DSMs, do not include balance shafts with any of his engines. If thousands of his customers havent had a problem yet after so many (hard) years, then its good enough for me.

[Shadow19]

I think its complete bullshit to be honest. Its like saying prothane motor mounts will case your car to prematurely fall apart one day from vibration. Yes its harsh as hell at idle but i deal with it. I love the way my 2.4 revs ;-).

[xd_01]

its not bullshit its fact and try checking under your hood im sure those urethane inserts have vibrated loose some key nuts and bolts, assuming you have all 4.

[Shadow19]

its not bullshit its fact and try checking under your hood im sure those urethane inserts have vibrated loose some key nuts and bolts, assuming you have all 4.

LOL.. all of my bolts and nuts are tight as virgin pussy man. IDK how you guys build some hacked up shit and get these insane results with broken parts and crap. Have you OWNED a car with both the balance shafts removed and prothane motor mounts? Here is the deal. Ive read many threads like this in my build experiences. Here is what ive come up with: 1. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. 2. Just because you work on a car does not mean you're a professional and you should start throwing your "knowledge" around. 3. DO NOT believe everything you read on the internet. 4. Guys with experience with things like this is WHO and ONLY WHO YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO. Speculation is speculation. Real world results are real world results. 5. Do whatever the fuck you want with your car. At the end of the day YOU have to deal with it. 6. If youre removing balance shafts and adding things to make power the odds are youre really not looking to have a very reliable car. Experience is everything and thats all im saying. I cant tell you how many times ive been fucked up from getting wrong information off of DSM tuners and other sites. There is a bunch of idiots going around reading information that is dead ass wrong and any time someone asks a question about it then they give them wrong information.

[xd_01]

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Iam LMAO!!!!!!!! @ U right now!!!!!!!

i cant even continue with this lol.

[Stewi]

LOL.. all of my bolts and nuts are tight as virgin pussy man. IDK how you guys build some hacked up shit and get these insane results with broken parts and crap. Have you OWNED a car with both the balance shafts removed and prothane motor mounts? Here is the deal. Ive read many threads like this in my build experiences. Here is what ive come up with: 1. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. 2. Just because you work on a car does not mean you're a professional and you should start throwing your "knowledge" around. 3. DO NOT believe everything you read on the internet. 4. Guys with experience with things like this is WHO and ONLY WHO YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO. Speculation is speculation. Real world results are real world results. 5. Do whatever the fuck you want with your car. At the end of the day YOU have to deal with it. 6. If youre removing balance shafts and adding things to make power the odds are youre really not looking to have a very reliable car. Experience is everything and thats all im saying. I cant tell you how many times ive been fucked up from getting wrong information off of DSM tuners and other sites. There is a bunch of idiots going around reading information that is dead ass wrong and any time someone asks a question about it then they give them wrong information.

Easy easy man. First and foremost, there isnt a part on XD's car that is hacked up. I am the only other person besides him who touches that car and everything is proper. Also to question his experience is another thing. Just because he isnt always posting stuff on TGC doesnt mean he doesnt know whats up. He has been turning wrenches on my car for about 5 years now and has been a part of nearly every project I have done, so he has a ton of first hand, hands on experience with the topic at hand. With that being said, maybe you havent had experience with bolts coming out but I have. When I first had my urethane mounts I did the front and sides and not the back. I got about 2k miles on the car and vibrated loose every bolt that holds the bell housing to the block EVERY BOLT. Thats when I started using loctite on all of them. I have loctite on nearly every bolt in my engine bay now because of the vibration from the mounts. Hell an even funnier story, XD was at my house last weekend and we were taking my hood off and he wanted to check out my rear pro-thane insert. So he's checking it out and says dude wtf? where is the bolt? Yeah thats right, the nut came completely off and the bolt was barely hanging in there by like a 1/4", guess I forgot to loctite that one. There have been DSM guys that use the solid aluminum rear mount insert that have actually caused stress cracks on the bell housing itself around where the rear mount fork thing bolts up from all the harsh vibration. Im not saying not to get urethane mounts because I love them, but they do have their downfalls.

[peanotation]

How often does that harmonic balancer belt break? Should I be worried? I just follow the replacement interval as described in the Haynes repair manual. Is this belt notorious for breaking prematurely before the interval is up? If so, is an improper installation of the belt (too tight, too loose) to blame? or does this engine just break belts easily?

The belt IS notorious for breaking prematurely. I passed 60K miles on my completely original OEM 7G in high school, so I took it in for a timing belt job to the mitsubishi dealership. At the time I knew little about cars and I only trusted dealerships, despite having to pay out the ass. About 10K miles later or so, about a year I think, I was driving to school and felt wierd vibrations in the steering wheel all of a sudden. It was barely noticeable, so I figured I'd try to make it the last mile to school and call a towtruck to take me home afterwards. Pulling into the parking lot, POP. Engine dies. And I'm not the only one with this exact same horror story....

Long story short, balance shaft belt broke and tossed itself into the path of the timing belt, got caught in between the belt and the gear on the crank, threw timing off, etc etc etc. Bent valves, no cracked or damaged pistons thank god. And this car had only ever seen the garage of an official mitsubishi dealership. Sure, maybe that day the mechanic was out of it and I got screwed with a bad timing belt job, but I've read many versions of this same story....

So if mitsu does my timing belt job and the balance shaft belt still breaks and causes catastrophic failure, that to me is a flaw in the system, and must be removed, IE balance shaft belt removal (properly). However, I've stated my reasons for keeping mine in, although I'm split 50/50 on the argument...

[Shadow19]

To each his own. I guess maybe i sounded harsh about it. No bitterness towards anyone. I seriously doubt this will cause an issue with the car. Like anything there is always a draw back. Keep them in and break a belt and goodbye engine. Remove them and take the chance of failure. Either way youre fucked.. LOL

[oakrdrs187]

From my experience of, I think it's a bad thing to have it on there, when my girlfriend bought her car it had 87k on it, I did tune ups and brakes you know little things. I got a mechanic to do the timing belts last month odo at 144k, never had any problems accelerating to redline at least once everyday. Now that throttle vibrates like chicks toy with anything over 3500rpm, I searched this forum for that issue and it was said that the balance shaft was off by a notch, checked it and it was fine. The reason I blame the balance belt is because when the mechanic first removed the cover the balance belt was torn an wrapped around the sprockett, it looked old and I strongly think ithas been that way since 87k because that engine never did that until now. Also I think those strong vibrations have screwing things up inthe engine bay, like the ac compressor plastic connector has broke so I hardwired it around, a replace the radiator with a broken tranny line that dumped coolant in it, and now my recent TGC purchase the intake manifold cracked all the way around where the TB bolts on, this post is honestly making me think of cutting off that blasted belt right now that the cover is off and the intake fuelrail and the car just sits there.

[oakrdrs187]

BTW I'm rolling stock mounts al around


So it's not a good idea to go polyeurothane minus the balance shaft?

[peanotation]

everyone has different opinions on the varying levels of increased vibration from deleting the balance shaft.....back in the day manybrews (our ex resident mitsu mechanic) said that he could tell a car had it's BS belts removed just by standing next to it while idling....other drivers swear they can hardly tell the difference....supposedly the only real nuisance happens briefly at 2 RPM points.....

[Shadow19]

i dont feel any difference while driving. Its just when the car is idling.

[oakrdrs187]

so can anyone explain my vibrating gas pedal? if BS belt is good

I ask cuz im about to cut that crap off

[Stewi]

so can anyone explain my vibrating gas pedal? if BS belt is good

I ask cuz im about to cut that crap off

you probably just have a bad motor mount or something.

[oakrdrs187]

that would be something to check out, but considering that it happened right after the bs belt was put on for the first time since a about 40k miles i kinda lean off of that cuz ive seen them and theyre all intact.