balancing the crank means you are balancing it to the internals that are being rotated. Yes get it balanced its not expensive, you will have to bring in the rods, pistons and crank you will be using. I would use gsr everything because its stronger and can handle the rpms, factory they come with a block girdle as well, which is a def plus. I used b16 pistons in mine, you wont see much of a difference unless you have a cam to take advantage of the compression. If you have the money get it bored .20 over and buy new pistons and rings, most places online have b16 replica pistons in different sizes for about the same as you would get at stock bore. Hope that helps.