| The good old internal combustion engine contains large lumps of reciprocating
and rotating metal. Now, if a rotating object is out of balance then the result
is vibration, and that leads to excessive wear, and ultimately component
failure. Everyone must have experienced the vibration that you get through the
steering wheel when a front wheel is out of balance; the principle is exactly
the same in engines.
The normal practice for engine balancing is to balance the crankshaft and
flywheel together, and to balance the con-rod/piston assemblies. Other rotating
components, such as the camshaft, are not usually balanced since their moments
of rotation are inherently small; they can become significant at high engine
speeds (12-13k rpm), and an F1 engine would have these and just about everything
else balanced.
There are three main benefits of engine balancing:
1 everything runs smoother, so the stresses are reduced.
2 more power can be produced, since less energy is wasted in overcoming out of
balance forces.
3 there is the possibility of using higher engine speeds.
However, balancing an engine will not on it's own, make it more powerful or
allow it to rev higher. There are other factors, such as component strength,
reciprocating mass, gas flows, etc, etc, which all have to be taken into account
when trying to increase an engines performance. Like everything else in this
life, there's a lot of compromise in engine tuning.
Most engines can benefit in being properly balanced, as manufacturers production
techniques usually limit the work that can be carried out cost effectively.
Certainly, if you are planning to tune an engine to deliver more than the maker
planned, it's all essential ingredient.
Dick
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