A good discussion on the Engineered to Slide facebook page on WHY NOT TO RUN A LIGHTENED UNDERDRIVE PULLEY
Matt Baker This is interesting, what kind of pulleys and belts are being used in this set up?
6 December 2012 at 12:19 · Like
Nathan Roderick Panitz Can't imagine the engine would run to good without it, the whole point of it is to balance the engine
6 December 2012 at 12:21 · Like · 1
Mickel Tantucz I'd say, with the set up as pictured above; would last a few years, if everything is balanced down to 0.0000 and just run a v-belt, just put an aftermarket forge oil pump gears, and just run dry sump
6 December 2012 at 12:22 via mobile · Like · 6
Mack BallinOutrageous Durff balanced engine.
6 December 2012 at 12:22 · Like · 4
Tony CurtusLee Henstra underdrive. less rotation i.e. higher revolutions per the time it would take to rotate standard with a balnacer. so maybe 3/1?
6 December 2012 at 12:23 · Like · 1
Gary Covny Even solid alloy harmonic balancers arent great for your motor im unsure of the specifics but when i did my apprenticeship and got into the engine building side of things i was told they were bad news .
6 December 2012 at 12:23 · Like
Gary Covny Looks amazing though
6 December 2012 at 12:24 · Like
Dustin Hutson If the engine was perfectly balanced would it really need one?
6 December 2012 at 12:24 · Like · 2
Engineered to Slide This is normal wet sump Tomei 2.2l, with no balancer you can run smaller pulleys on everything as you can see.
6 December 2012 at 12:24 · Like · 1
Patrick Bowering Crazy over driven water pump though. You would think that would cause some cavitation issues...?
6 December 2012 at 12:25 via mobile · Like · 1
Tony CurtusLee Henstra i think the balancer helps honestly. between variable bottom end vibration/rotation it dampens the resonance of the metals.
6 December 2012 at 12:26 · Like · 5
Gary Covny Looking at the pully gearing water pump would be underdriven if anything almost 1:1 by the look of it
Standard would be abouy 1.5:1
6 December 2012 at 12:28 · Like · 2
Logan Cooke I would stick with the balancer! They dont look that bad really... one would say removing would put an extra degree of stress on a high reving NA engine that it doesnt need! Were you going to be running solid lifters of sorts?... this being the main advantage of a VE engine I guess (and a bit more head flow)
6 December 2012 at 12:29 · Like · 2
Paul Limiter Porihis I hear nothing but bad things from guys running those litre and under driven pulley setups, which is essentially the same result. I hear of more than water pump failures with even one of the performance mags back in the day busting the myth. Martin Donnon might have something to say about it?
6 December 2012 at 12:30 via mobile · Like · 1
Tuff CustomsRacing Interesting!
6 December 2012 at 12:32 · Like · 1
Alex King Love this...
N/A power FTW!
6 December 2012 at 12:33 · Like · 1
Ryan Warner I'm trying to figure out why the coilovers are crooked 0.o
6 December 2012 at 12:39 · Like · 2
Danny Thompson ^ For more castor
Try not running one, see what happens, standard sr balancers look pretty poor quality anyway.
It's an sr. It's not going to last long anyway.
6 December 2012 at 12:39 via mobile · Like · 13
Peter Galant Harmonic balancer! Words say it all!
6 December 2012 at 12:45 via mobile · Like · 2
Shane Belaire Why don't they just get a light weight pully that's the same size as the balancer?
6 December 2012 at 12:47 · Edited · Like
Lee Partridge Dry sump then you have no oil pump issues... External belt driven oil pump.... Problem solved?...
6 December 2012 at 12:52 via mobile · Like · 1
Cameron Smith Removing balance shaft out of 4g63 is pretty standard practice for modified evos etc. Less rotational mass = better response. Never heard of anyone doing it in sr20 but obviously it has been done so why not do it?
6 December 2012 at 12:53 via mobile · Like · 2
Stefan Waller Lite weight pulleys are effectively removing them anyway being they are a solid piece with no rubber segments to dampen anyways. I took off the one on my miata years ago and its NA, as far as turbo applications i would leave it. A balanced engine would be okay even FI, Subaru pulleys have no damper function at all, just a pulley.
6 December 2012 at 12:54 · Like · 2
Jason Davis Blancer is there for a reason.. SR have terrible harmonics.. removing one would be straight up dumb.. I ran alloy fly wheel and alloy solid balancer on my NA engine and twice it vibrated the flywheel loose..
Will NEVER touch a solid balancer ever again.
6 December 2012 at 12:55 · Like · 1
Jesse Baylon Dumb in deed it destroyed my fwd ve thats what i get i guess
6 December 2012 at 13:19 · Like
Scott Treadwell ThaBawse A TRULY balanced engine. I bet that thing can hit 10/11,000 rpms. The balancer is to alleviate any additional balancing issues that weren't perfect from original assembly. Like if you bought all new parts, threw em together, then put the balancer on there and went to town. It's an additional step to get it balanced.
6 December 2012 at 13:26 · Like · 1
Scott Treadwell ThaBawse Jason, your flywheel came loose cuz it wasnt tightened to spec... Mine came loose cuz some asshole didn't tighten em down correctly and sequence...
6 December 2012 at 13:27 · Like · 1
JohNy DeE Do not run with out a balancer. Will cause oil pump failure. The harmonic balancer is designed to absorb the vibrations. I knew a bloke who ran a gfb crank pulley, they have no dampening, and it caused the oil pump to fail and spun a bearing.
6 December 2012 at 13:37 · Like · 1
Christian Taylor dem itb's tho
6 December 2012 at 13:40 · Like · 2
Jonathan Wright damn those pulleys are small!!
6 December 2012 at 13:53 · Like
Justin Aaron Hauerwas Its built by tomei. I'm pretty sure they got 100% correct and balanced.
6 December 2012 at 13:59 · Like · 2
Ben Fukofski I dont see how running a solid pulley will cause the oil pump to fail. The harmonic balancer doesnt balance your engine, it takes the harmonics out of the pulley to prevent damage to the alternator, powersteer and water pump. Hence why late model alternators have one way clutches that eliminate the need for a harmonic balancer.
6 December 2012 at 13:59 · Like · 4
Trent Hewitson every oil pump failure on sr20 ive ever seen ran solid harmonic balancers... dont do it. Solid balancer on a dry sump motor SR would be ok but remember these comp motors get torn down every few events.... are you going to pull it down and mic it up every few 100 kays?
6 December 2012 at 14:12 · Edited · Like
Aleksandar Kantarovski Andreas Paraskevas broke his oil pump 1 track day after fitting a GO SLOW BITS "BALANCER".
6 December 2012 at 14:11 · Like
Joey Condon Those motors arnt built as daily drives though.. You wont BULK power for a couple laps so *fudge* it off
6 December 2012 at 14:14 via mobile · Like · 1
Christian Curtis Just wack a supercharger and beefed up oil pump on it and she'll be right
6 December 2012 at 14:20 via mobile · Like
Trent Hewitson ^^ its gonna make 120-130rwkw hardly bulk...
6 December 2012 at 14:21 · Like · 2
Aleksandar Kantarovski lol bulk
6 December 2012 at 14:21 · Like
Reece Burnett Sebastian Court
6 December 2012 at 14:24 via mobile · Like
Jordan Harrison off topic but; why do people drive civics when there is this? so much *woo-hoo*
6 December 2012 at 14:25 · Like · 2
Sebastian Court This is discussion is retarded, this motor is built by Tomei it's been extremely finely balanced for competition use, fitting a light weight balancer regardless of brand onto a factory spec motor is just idiotic!
6 December 2012 at 14:56 via mobile · Like · 1
Paul Mckinnon Its not a question of how well balanced it is, harmonics are completely un-related and occur everytime a cylinder fires. Don't even consider not running one. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....
6 December 2012 at 15:03 · Like · 1
A.j. Spence First off, its a harmonic dampener, not a balancer. Second, inline 4's are difficult tol balance, so removing the dampener is a bad idea. Your main bearings will suffer.
6 December 2012 at 15:05 · Like · 4
Warren Heath Nigel, I went through the same process with my Mazda BP DOHC engine, they also has a nasty habit of breaking the oil pump drive (i am assuming the SR has the oil pump driven off the nose of the crank like the BP), and having a very heavy harmonic. I researched it alot, and I found that the harmonic has little to do with why the oil pump fails. There has also been a number of companies manufacture stronger items, but they still eventually fail. I then got onto a guy that had researched the problem in detail, and found that at high RPM the relief valve system in the oil pump couln't cope, and the oil pump would just explode itself. He rectified the problem by fitting a Peterson external oil regulator instead of relying on the internal one. I did this with the engine in my race car, 3 years on and heaps of race meetings still going strong with the light weight flywheel, and the alloy lightweight harmonic pulley (the weight of the original is ridiculous). Keeping in mind that my whole engine was balanced around the items I have fitted. Cheers, Warren Heath Performance
6 December 2012 at 15:12 · Like · 7
Alberto Chipres These engine LS aren't built for long term use like our stock road engines.
6 December 2012 at 15:21 via mobile · Like
Jeremy Hill What happens when only one person sits on a seesaw
I'd be less worried about the water pump and more worried on the crank/big end
6 December 2012 at 15:50 · Like · 1
Troels Sørensen *poo* that's looking clean...
6 December 2012 at 15:57 · Like · 1
Ryan Dew Not sure what the other 50 comments have to say?? But it is more to do with torsional vibration-That is what the harmonic balancer is there to absorb. We do torsional vibration surveys at work pretty often on different engines. But pretty much at certain RPM's no matter how well the engine is balanced there will be a horrible vibration, you can get around this by making sure the engine doesn't run at that particular RPM rev range for long periods of time, (Like cruising at 100km an hour) But still its a very big risk for not very much gain. If you want to know more maybe chat to Brendan Butcher in the Engine lab. Cheers
6 December 2012 at 16:09 · Like · 3
Bren Nan *fudge* it, do it for the looks... also, s15 style coilpacks on a non-vct motor?
6 December 2012 at 16:10 · Like
Warren Heath Performance @Jeremy and Ryan, If you refer to my comment, the rest of the engine was done around the lightweight harmonic. Eg: lightened crank, and lightened flywheel to match. It terms of gains, if you compare the weight difference it is massive, especially when you also factor in crank and flywheel weight reductions. You also need to take into consideration the engine type, like my BP the SR was originally designed around being turbo'd, hence the internals are much heavier than they need to be in N/A form. The weight of engine internals plays a huge part in N/A form. Cheers, Warren Heath Performance
6 December 2012 at 16:17 · Like
Andrey Platkovskiy Ryan is the only one talking truth here. Harmonic balancer is there, not because ur engine is unbalanced. Its too cope down the torsionsl vibrations. Metal twists. Crank twists on every compression stroke abd then releaves. Too much vibration and ur bearings, oil pump, crank wont have happy life. If u want good *poo* look up ati or fluidampr. Later prefered, since its working in every revolution, u dont have to tune it to ur engine and wont drtoriate.
7 December 2012 at 00:37 · Like · 1
Daniel Kristopher Walsh Those engines you see are perfectly balanced independent of a balancer. The result of running an unbalanced engine without a balancer with result in main bearing damage and or a cracked/broken crankshaft.
7 December 2012 at 09:03 via mobile · Like
Friso Gorter They use upgraded oil pumps.
7 December 2012 at 20:38 · Like
Darrell Webb we sometimes run bike engines without a flywheel so they ramp up faster but like its been said eventually engine damage
7 December 2012 at 21:03 · Like