A good balancer will not really "make" more power. But on a street car, it makes the engine live MUCH longer. The "balancer" is really a harmonic dampner. The manufacturers use it to balance the reciprocating assembly because they use cheap materials in the cranks. But it's real job is to remove harmful vibrations from the crank that will normally be produced in a V style engine. Without it, engines will eat themselves. Some race engines run without them because special attention is paid to balancing and materials and parts choices, and the crank is needed to drive things like fuel pumps, blowers, and magnetos. I dont re-use dmapners. I also dont like anything with fluid..Friends had them leak years ago, and I havent found an engineer to explain how fuild can dampen things as good as the right durometer rubber can over a wide rpm range. The best I know of are ATI SuperDampners. I usually use new Professional Products balancers, and verify TDC during every build. They are fairly cheap, coem with the weights if needed, and the rings have never slipped on me. New stock ones have before.
