HELP ASAP! Missing balancer belt!!!!!!!!!

[NateS]

Many of you know I am in the process of putting a built head on my car. Well I took off the lower timing belt cover today and noticed something strange. The balancer belt is not there! I ended up finding it snapped somewhere else in the engine bay. I had no idea my belt snapped how fucked am I?

This had to happen sometime between now and my last head gasket change. I remember hearing a belt squeeking awhile ago on startup but I figured it was the ac belt because, I could not get it tight. My car had a mysterious coolant problem where it would push the coolant out of the system into the overflow bottle. I ended up running no thermostat for awhile and it was cooling fine but coolant was still getting pushed out. I figured this was from a cracked/warpped head from a massive overheating I had. I didn't worry about it to much because, I was getting a head built anyway. My car also had a pretty good oil leak but, I am almost positive this was from me tighting the valve cover down too hard...way to hard.

My car didn't drive any differently other than it drove like shit before it got warmed up. Can I just throw another belt on there and be on my way or am I seriously fucked here?

[NateS]

Okay I calmed down a little bit. I just read on FAQ that if the balancer belt snaps the worst that can happen is the pieces hit the timing belt and make it snap/jump. If not then the motor just becomes more "buzzy". For some reason I did not notice the "buzziness" and as far as I know the T-belt did not skip(no loss of performance/bent/broken valves).

[gthompson97]

I wouldn't worry about it. Its just like running the car with the balance shaft elimination kit.

[NateS]

Well, thats what I thought at first too but, I read a post the Kevin made awhile back and he said that you can run with the front shaft in and no belt but, you need to remove the rear shaft(spins off of oil pump). He said that running no belt with both still installed is a "no-no" Can anyone comfirm this? Any suggestions? I just looked at instructions for installing the eliminator kit and it looks pretty difficult.

[NOFX0617]

The actual installation of the kit isnt too bad with the motor out of the car. Doing it while the motor is still in seems like it would be a pain.

[NateS]

Yeah it deffinatly does. I've been reading up on the installation of it for the past couple days and I've decided to just replace the belt. I think it will be too much of a hastle with the block still in the car and on top of that I will be switching over to a 6 bolt adventually anyway. The one thing that makes me extremely nervous is figuring out what made the belt snap. The motor was rebuilt about 50K miles ago and I am asuming they replaced the balance shaft belt too. Then again it was a dealership job.

[Thor06]

Anyone ever seen balance shafts? They look silly. I wouldnt do a BS elim unless the engine was out of the car. My DSM has a BS elim and its not annoying at all, makes me wonder why they put them there in the first place.

[gthompson97]

Yeah they are pretty fucked up, they don't even really do much at all, just more shit to break I guess. If you're eventually going to do a 6-bolt swap then I'd just put in a new belt and run it like that.

[Talon69]

before i rebuilt my engine i drove mine around with the balance shaft belt broke for about 1 year. Your better off without that belt anyways, they break more often than you know lol. So when i built my engine i also put the elim. kit in mine. I would be willing to bet alot of people that have modded there cars on here have that belt broke. If you do not check for it chances are it usually is after modding. The heavy launches is what usually breaks them. Do not replace that belt, run it without it.

[NateS]

Talon69, That is what I wanted someone to tell me haha. But, like I said I read a post where Kevin said that you SHOULD NOT run no belt on the front BS unless you have removed the rear BS. So in other words if the rear BS is there you better be running a belt for the front. It would be nice to get Kevin's words here or something of the sort. What is the draw back of me running no belt with both shafts still in? Will it drop my oil pressure alot or what?

[NateS]

I just read up on dsmtuners and the only post I found about running with no belt says that not running the belt will cause horrible vibrations. Like I said I ran without the belt for probably a few months and had no idea that it wasn't there(no noticable vibrations). Right now I'm leaning towards not replacing the BS belt and leaving both BS shafts in.

[gthompson97]

I've never seen nor had "horrible" vibrations when removing the balance shafts. It's something that "could" happen but never really does. You may get a tiny bit of vibration, but nothing really noticeable.

[NateS]

I am not talking about removing the balance shafts. I am talking about leaving both shafts in and not putting a belt on the front shaft. I have heard that not putting a belt on the front BS shaft (rear shaft still installed) and runing it can mess with the oil pressure slightly.

[gthompson97]

That's what I meant, running them with no belt will give you the same "vibration" effect as completely removing them, so the vibration is nothing to worry about, that's all I was getting at.

[NateS]

Oh okay cool. Misunderstanding on my part. So if I can just not run the belt why don't more dsmers do this? I am intending on completeing the timing job/head install without the BS belt installed... I'll let you all know how it goes. Thanks for all the info.