Balancer FLIES Off Nitrous Mustang And Bounces Down The Track!

Talk about sketchy! While nobody wants any parts to fall off their car at the track, or anywhere else for that matter, having something like the balancer remove itself from the engine at speed is a potentially huge problem, for both the engine it came off of and anybody standing nearby.

The balancer’s name – it’s technically call a harmonic balancer – is a pretty good indicator of it’s role as it relates to the engine: it balances the harmonics created by the rotating assembly as the engine spins through the RPM range. Since it’s bolted directly onto the nose of the crankshaft, the balancer spins at whatever speed the tachometer shows, meaning a balancer from a race engine such as the nitrous powerplant in this Mustang could see speeds up to 9,000 RPM or even higher.

When a heavy metal disk comes off the engine at 9,000 revolutions per minute, things could very well end badly. Luckily, this one stayed within the confines of the retaining walls and, after bouncing for quite some time, came to rest harmlessly in the middle of the track. However, if it had managed to bounce over the wall, and that has happened before, he could have easily entered the spectator area and done some major damage. Thankfully that wasn’t the case this time.