honestly,does anybody know how to do it,is it safe,i know the motor might vibrate a little more,but is there a kit for it,my buddy has a eclipse GTS and there is a kit to remove them,a little help on this please

I have not torn apart an eclipse engine before, so I can't comment on that.

But, an ecotec uses the balance shaft chain to turn the water pump. So, I doubt that it is possible.

what about a shorter chain than,doing away with the the shaft's drag on the crank and cams.....................?,some way of taking out the shafts,by just going from the crank,to the water pump,to the cames,or maybe an electric water pump?


if at first you don't succeed,you should probably give up

I have looked into this a bit. You need the chain to run the water pump, and you can not shorten the chain because it will hit other things (I'll have to confirm this). GM doesn't remove them, the replace them with nutreul shafts but I'm not a fan of spinning dead weight if I don't have too. My idea is to take stock balance and machine them to be nothing but the primary bearing surface. This should remove both the offset weight and 90% of the total weight while not changing the path of the chain. The problem is I don't have a spare engine to try this out on yet Anyone want to volenteer?

The balance shaft chain is only connected to the crank sproket. It is not connected to the cam sprokets at all.

thanks for the info Xain G, so why is it not possiable,your only limited to your ideas,could an electric water pump be used,then there is no issue of the water pump,just think if it was possiable who wouldn't do it,and as for the extra vibration that the balance shafts stop,i can live with that,the bottom end can't be that much out of balance,lets put our heads together on this people


if at first you don't succeed,you should probably give up

I was talking about this last night with a buddy and he brought up a good point. By removing the balance shafts you change the engines oiling characteristics. This could lead to parts of the engine starving for oil. The way around this is to block/cap the oil feeds for the bearings once you remove the shafts. The problem is that it's hard to get at them, so some sort of ring that can be pressed into place might work.

I have a spare motor and most of the timing assembly sitting on a bench, I also have 3-4 sets of balance shafts. If people are really that interested I can begin to look into it more seriously.

maybe a freeze plug,or something that would be machined ,see we're thinking on this,and its great,yes I'm very interested in this,i thought this thread was going to die after i started it along time ago,i have a friend that works at a machine shop,send me dimensions and I'll see what i can do


if at first you don't succeed,you should probably give up

I guess it's possible. BUT the balance shafts are there to keep the engine from vibrating, to keep it running correctly. Without them the engine would vibrate severely as the crank and cams turned. Causing the engine to function very poorly.

Slight chance that you could get the engine blueprinted and balanced. I was talking to a tech at my work and he thinks that wouldn't even help at all. And that the engine would probably not run even close to right, if run at all.

I guess, if you have an extra ecotec laying around, you could try it. Trial and error sorta scenario. In a worst case, the engine could sieze, or throw a rod and possibly injure someone.

As for the electric water pump... is there one that fits in the ecotec? And seal correctly to not allow engine oil to spurt out?

Quote:

BUT the balance shafts are there to keep the engine from vibrating, to keep it running correctly. Without them the engine would vibrate severely as the crank and cams turned. Causing the engine to function very poorly.

You are right about the balance shafts being used to reduce engine vibrations, but they have nothing to do with your engine running correctly. They are simply weighted shafts that spin in order to cancel out the vibrations casued by the crank and pistons. Removing the balance shafts is on average worth 15-20 horsepower and should result in the engine running more efficiantly due to not having to spin a bunch of unneeded weights. GM sells neutral shafts which achieve the same effect as removing the shafts, except you still have a shaft to spin.

Gm Shafts

GMpartsdirect lists them at $320. I'd like to come up with something hopefully a bit cheaper and definentally more efficiant. It's no small job to remove/replace your balance shafts and I refuse to do it unless I am getting the most out of it.

Oh and here is a link to a great description of what balance shafts do.

Link

I was at work yesterday, and I had to go home. My comp. is screwed at home so I had to hurry and didn't finish my post.

The vibrations caused by removing the balance shafts wouldn't be anything minor. It would be a great deal of vibration. Those vibrations could possibly cause the bolts in the engine to vibrate lose. Thus my meaning of throwing a rod.. rod bolts vibrating lose. Or even bolts that hold the cams down, front cover, etc. Not to mention excessive wearing on the piston rings.

When I put my poly engine & trany mounts on.. the bolts in my exhaust manifold vibrated lose and one even fell out. And those vibrations would be nothing in comparison to those if you removed the balance shafts.

The timing can be distorted just from vibrations.

If the timing gets messed up theres a whole bunch problems that can occur.
I've seen in a GM 3.0 V6, where the timing somehow became off and it bent all the push rods, valves and valve springs. And this was a brand new vehicle with the engine at 3000 miles.

Those neutral shafts still do the same job of balance shafts. They are just lighter than the stock ones to cause less force to turn them. They do not eliminate the balance shafts & balance chain. If they did, GM would also make a electric water pump for an ecotec; which they do not.

Now the engine could run decently without them but without compensating for the vibrations (blueprint & balance), there's a good chance the engine would not perform any better and most likely worse. And if it did run decent, the vibes would get worse over time & wear on the engine, then causing problems down the line.

having owned a couple of dodge neons,those cars didn't have balance shafts,2.0 SOHC,and DOHC,as i said earlier my friend bought a kit for his eclipse to remove them,his car is a GTS,eclipses top car,alot of older cars,inline fours didn't have balance shafts,i'm not argueing that you can't but how how could you,i like to think outside of the box,if i stuck to what was factory,you wouldn't see me posting here,i think there is potential here in this idea,i work as a diesel mechcanic for the army as a civilian,there is not one of these vevicals with a balance shaft ,nor are theybalanced and blueprinted,how can it be done,thats what i want to know


if at first you don't succeed,you should probably give up

Well diesel engines are completely different... they don't have spark plugs. That doesn't mean gasoline engine don't need them either.

I would assume that you could just leave the shafts in place. Grind down the piece that holds the sprokets (or just leave and remove the sprokets), remove the chain, tensioner, and guides. Or just remove the shafts period. Oil flows all over the shaft cylinders & the front cover, so I wouldn't think you would need to cap them.

The real problem would be finding an electric water pump for ecotec. Then making sure it fits perfectly in to it's housing on the block.

Sorry been busy tuning the turbo.

I'll try to get around to cutting a balance shaft tongiht and take a few pics, then everyone will understand my idea.

ok I finally cut one down and it looks like it will work really well. I still need to get it machined to clean up the end but all in all I'm happy with the way it'll turn out. I'll take pics as soon as the batterries for my camera charge. So any ideas/recommendations for oil? I wrecked one set of shafts experimenting but I have at least one more kicking around to play with. I might have another set in my box of eco bits.

well you seem to be on a roll LIVID i haven't taken apart my motor yet,but what do you mean by oil? i guess it was for the balance shafts ,I'm not even going to try to guess,you have spearheaded this I'll stand by and hand you tool,hows that,but thanks for trying to do this,at least you realize the potential in this idea


if at first you don't succeed,you should probably give up

Sorry no pics yet, been busy. Got the shafts back from the machine shop. I had to set of shafts machined and everthing looks good. I still need to find a way to block the oil hole from the rear bearing, but I have an idea. I'll try to look in to it this weekend. Looking at the motor it looks like you can do the install if you drop the passanger side down a few inches and remove the fender liner. It could still be a tough job though.

My biggest problem is my current motor is a little blown I leaned out pretty bad (still not sure why, might have been a bad injector) and now #4 is showning 45psi on a compression test. I havn't found a cheap replacment and might just drop a built motor it. All of the theory is sound but I'm not sure I want to try this out on a built motor. Oh well, I'm talking to a wrecker this weekend about another motor so maybe he'll give me a good deal for buying in bulk.

I have a motor that allready has this done to it. You do have to have something in place of the balance shaft to keep the oil directed to the main bearings. The GM shafts are just a piece of steel machined to fit in the bore and to help direct the oil around to the main bearings, they are very heavy about 3 #'s each. Best solution is to put the stock ones back in and leave the chain off, but you do have to leave the crank gear for this chain on so it keeps the proper spacing for the timing chain with the cam gears. I run an electric water pump flowing 55gal per min. and it seems to keep things cool enough. I just built a block off plate to cover the opening for the water pump and welded a -12 an fitting to it where the water enters the block from the water pump. I dont notice alot more vibration because it is used for competion only. Lots of luck



BOW TIES FOREVER

I'm still plugging away at this. I have another spare motor now that I have been playing with as far as balance shafts go. My big thing right now is finding something to block off the rear bearing. I'm pretty sure from looking at it that the primary bearing surface will be fine, so now it's just a matter of blocking off the rear oiling holes. I though about trying to pound out the existing bearing and rotate it, but thats going to be hard to do with the motor in the car. That leaves an insert of some sort. Due to the size of the bearing I've been having trouble finding something premade. I can get my machinist to make me something but thats not as easy so I'll hold out for a bit before I go that route.

My head studs are on order so the beast might be running again in a few weeks, at which time I hope to be testing my solution. As soon as Ii warn people that it might wipe out their engine they get all scared and don't want to do it, so I'll have to go first .

Check out Mantapart. They remove the balance shafts on quad 4's. I think they might do a belt conversion for the chain. I don't know, maybe they use a neutral shaft. mantapart.com

Forgot to mention I have this figured out finally. I have 2 sets of parts sitting on my bench right now, just waiting for my head to get back from the machine shop to slap the top end back together, then I'll be attempting the install. Still not sure if it can be done without removing the motor.

I don't think you would gain 15hp by removing them anyway, maybe 1 or2hp at very high rpm.

its been proven 10HP or better. i though i remembered reading about the idlers. i know the shaft delete has been done, and several times at that.

I have LIVID's/Level Zero's kit... the motor runs freaking smooth and feels faster (with only a WAI, manifold back exhaust, and LZM Stage II cams with an extra degree of lobe seperation) than my old 14.9 second LD9.

Very much worth the $225USD... remember, for every lb of rotating mass you lose, you gain approx 1HP accellerating at 600rpm/second. (it was in a popular hot roding a month ago... dyno tested on a v8, but the same theory apply to us) and each balance shaft weighs about 3-4lbs, so thats 8hp!