Originally Posted by 1994Vmax

I balance pretty much everything I build... in fact everything. A balanced engine just runs so much better.. eliminating harmonics is never a bad thing. This one engine I am putting together is just a stock bottom end LQ4 for a turbo build. It was one I got screwed over on really as it was nowhere near as good of shape as it should have been. In fact 4 out of the 8 original rods were so out of round you couldn't even fix them with the 2 thou overbore. I had a set of Gen 4 5.3 rods ( this is an LQ4 with floating pins) and when I measured them they were lighter than the originals by a few grams anyways. I could have have put it together and tried it.... but screw that. I had it balanced like anything else and they did their fair share of work on it. It's a stock bottom LQ4 with ARP rod bolts only ( and they don't distort the caps... I tried them... hell the stock bolt torque wise is a lot tighter than the ARP is.... but I didn't measure stretch and I imagine the stockers stretch a lot more too.

Honestly I think balance and setup is all that keeps the one dirt track 355 I built alive... a 2 bolt 1 piece rear seal small block with the stock crank and rods ( ARP hardware) that sees 8000+ rpm all the time on the track.... and is on it's fifth season now.

Balance and setup... keeps them alive! Within reason of course lol.