273 Supercharged...ITS HAPPENING PEOPLE!!

You can balance the pistons to the same weight but it takes a special fixture to do the rods. Then it takes a balancing machine to do the crank. They also spin the balancer and the flywheel adding or removing weight as necessary. If you have lightweight rods and pistons they can take weight off the crank throws by drilling. If they have to add weight, they use special metal called Mallory metal that is heavier than the iron in the crank. Quite expensive!
Balancing an engine properly is a machine shop job and cannot be done in the home shop.

Here's a pretty good article about engine balancing: http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/ccrp-0803-engine-balancing/

Ok.....So maybe its a terminology thing we are fighting lol. What you are referring to I call a Dynamic balance. Meaning that the rotating assembly is done as a unit and not individually. The rods and pistons like I am referring to I call a static balance just because its not done in conjunction with the crank. The goal being just to get all the rods and pistons to weigh as close to the same as possible.

I get that that is always a good idea but in an application where the engine is not turning over 5500-6000 is it just a piece of mind thing or more of a longevity thing?