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To balance or not?

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Haha, my machinest is such a nice guy I am sure he would show me. For example I asked about haveing the flywheel lightened and he said he did not do that, he only resurfaced but he could tell me who did If when I wanted.

I am really impressed with this guy, he seems to really have my engines well being to heart.

Hay he has one of those phones that gives him the calleres name and he answers with a Good afternoon Mr. Laird. Supprised the heck out of me when he first did it.
 
haha jack...someday you (and my dad..born 1937) will get that new fangled stuff called Caller ID on your phone!:smile:
 
Hay, I am a really up to date guy. Cell phone, a very fast computer, for gameing, that I built, and a Bugeye. Oh wait a Bugeye how is that up to date, hehe.
 
Overkill on a street engine. Unless you're going racing or plan on driving the snot out of it, save a few bucks. Engines are very close from the factory, unless you change major components you will never feel the difference. Have built several engines including Corvette, Honda, MGB and Spitfire and have only balanced the ones going to the track. Bob
 
And that is prob. very true, but it is cool. Hehe.
 
Bob has offered the comment that balancing isn't necessary on a street engine. This is a valid point and the argument can be made that the factory (who wasn't interested in putting any more money in the car than necessary) was happy with the results. If you were happy with the level of vibration in your engine before its rebuild... then I'd agree with Bob and not pay the extra money for balancing.

However, I've seen very few LBCs (particularly those running A-series engines) that wouldn't benefit from the small extra expense of balancing. You'll have a smoother engine at idle right through the RPM range. It's obviously your call though. Personally I wouldn't consider doing a rebuild without paying for balancing.
 
I too will not build an engine without balanceing. No numbers, they just feel better.
 
Harmonics are a funny thing. In the course of an unbalanced rebuild you may introduce a truely annoying vibration that occurs right at cruising RPM's that unscrews the thumb nuts on the back of the gauges. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I'd pay the extra money to be sure, and it makes for good pub talk.
 
[ QUOTE ]
...the argument can be made that the factory (who wasn't interested in putting any more money in the car than necessary) was happy with the results.

[/ QUOTE ]

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/iagree.gif

These were regarded as basic, and cheap sports cars. Just look at the penny-pinching attitude to the cars as they aged- as little as possible was done as cheaply as possible as possible to keep them viable. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Balancing isn't that expensive once the engine's all apart and I intend on doing it with my engine once I get to that stage. I'd expect better reliability and longer life as well as performance. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif
 
Unless I was broke and just needed to fix an engine(course in that case I wouldn't be driving a lbc anyway)I would never build an engine without a good balance job. The engine will last longer, run much smoother, make a bit more power. Kinda seems goofy to take great care in constructing a nice engine and not doing the extra finish work that is relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of carpets, door panels and badge bars.
The factory did the bare minimum in the balancing dept. I bet if you asked the engineers if given an unlimited budget if they would want to balance the engine the answer would be yes.
 
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