counter - rotating shaft removal

I spoke with a new garage for a probably engine rebuild soon.

The 70 year boy with a large experience of engine mods (as many people say..) suggested me when the engine will be out of car to remove the counter - rotating shaft moved by a chain connected to the oil pump. He told me that is only inertia for the engine and it will be only a little more noisy but it will gain rpm faster.

I'm little confused: is he right? is this a worth mod and above all is a reliable mod?

I dont want to give my actual opinon to not influence you.

thank you for the suggestion

He is technically correct - when increasing revs, the engine has to accelerate all the parts that are connected to it - as well as the crank and pistons, you're looking at cams, flywheel, clutch, alternator, aircon compressor (if engaged), pumps, pulleys, belts and of course the balance shaft

However, the Coupe engine is not like a Lexus LFA that can go from tickover to the redline in a second - it's a fairly heavy turbo'd lump and you would probably find that there is something else that would affect the increase of revs more than the balance shaft (for example, turbo lag)

Sure, if you were building a race engine, you would do everything you can to improve response, but I'm guessing you're not building a race engine?

I doubt that noise would increase, but I would expect that you would feel the extra vibrations, especially if you are using uprated engine mounts.

I still have my balance shaft fitted and I'm not aware of any other big-power Coupes that have had theirs removed. I believe it is quite common on the 16VT though

I'd only suggest removing the balance shaft if the crank and associated connecting items are sent away to be professionally balanced.

The balance shaft is there to counteract the inherent imbalance in all straight 5 cylinder engines. If you really want to remove it I'd suggest the best method would be to fit a 6th cylinder to the engine, then the balance shaft would be unnecessary.

I have removed balance shaft belt from my 16VT, and I have disabled balance shaft also from my MC´s.
Yes you might feel a little bit more vibrations.
I have not ever heard that any engine has been damaged because of that.

It does not balance any unbalanced parts inside motor!

I agree with Nigel and GrahamL, Only straight 6 cylinder engine can prefectly stop 1st grade and 2nd grade inertia (if I remember correct from school).

@Nigel: if I will go for a engine rebuild (the head has been rebuild in 2019), would you suggest to replace std pulleys with ergal pulleys or also this mod is not worth the higher costs of the rebuild?

note: in june I bought a full 2.4 stilo engine for a ridiculous price but they asked me for a kidney for build a 2.4 turbo engine so now the project is abandoned and I rolled back to rebuild my actual 20VT engine

thank you guys for suggestions

I have standard pulleys on my car - I struggle to see any real benefit in aftermarket cam pulleys, unless you want to play with cam timing on standard cams.

Spend your money on cams instead - they make quite a difference, although you'll probably struggle to find any now - Columbo & Bariani.

I'd also be wary of the C&B cams now. Guy Croft had issues with them back in 2018 for the Lancia integrale 8v - link

balanca shafts removal is very easy job - I highly recommend it as u dont have to rotate with 5kg, u dont want second belt just next to timing belt and with shafts removed, u can notice higher oil pressure what is vital in 16vt, which suffers from low pressur due to various reasons...

there are kits around the internet with plugs and timing belt bearing support...

I have 3 engines when I dont rotate with balance shafts (1 only removed belt, 2 completelly removed shafts) - and dont´notice any discomfort... imagine, that in the era before delta/tipo were 2ltr engines without them and didn´t suffer from any noises/vibrations...

when deleting balance shafts, go for 22 or 25mm timing belt for more engine safety... this also highly increase engine reliability...

Dead link, but I don't recall hearing any negatives on the 20VT cams that C&B produced. Mine have done a fairly hefty mileage now (150k+). Could it have been a dodgy batch of 16v / Integrale cams?

Link is broken now for me too, but it worked earlier.

It was an extremely interesting horror story from 2018 about C&B cams for a 16vt disintegrating within 10 mins of starting the engine! It was found the cams hadn't been hardened, at all! C&B denied all responsibility but eventually sent a replacement set. Those were professionally tested by multiple independent experts and found by all to be the same as the first set, not hardened at all. Luckily they weren't fitted. C&B eventually pay out only a small % of the damage done, saying "if you don't like it take us to court".

Thanks Graham. Pretty much sums up what GC found and also that he will never use C&B again, which is definitely saying something.

Points to what must have been a bad batch of C & C cams then ? ,I'm not saying thats ok ,but a possibility ,had them in my coupe for over 10 years ,not had an issue ...

Or it points to the C&B cams produced for the 16vT engine...

if I remember well, it was 8VT... it changes nothing, I would never trust them again.. especially if they were not able to admit their error and with new set of cams with heat threatment will also pay rebuilt of damaged brand new, expensive engine...

Bad batch or not, something changed with their process in 2018, so the ones that have cams from years ago are fine. Just highlighting that there is issues and do you want to chance an engine being destroyed in 10 mins from installing the cams?

Hi guys, hope you're all well.

On my coupe's engine I had the balance shaft removed, as was said it was easy to do. There was a question about whether you should remove the chain because it isn't loaded up if the balance shaft isn't present

hi John ...
im lookimg at removing the balance shaft on my 20vt and have a few questions .....
do you know the process of removal
is it just a case of removing the shaft ??
are there any oil galleys to plug up or not ???

any help would be appreciated
many thanks

Sorry, it has been a while, I think there's a circlip that holds the shaft and a blanking plug on the block that you remove and then hit it out with a mallet. Then just put the blanking plug back in. It should be pretty apparent when you have the engine on a stand/bench.