Dan Martin

Put It In The Butt

gavinn58

I'll weigh in on this also since I had the full UR build on my 2000 Accord v6 just like loxllox. I never dynoed my car, but there was a definite difference on the low-end. Would I get these again? No, because it was $300, a bitch to install and included several quite annoying problems such as squealing belts, incorrect belt sizing and my alternator died. Keep in mind that the alternators from these cars were already crap to begin with, however I wouldn't be surprised if the addition of an underdriven pulley caused it to crap-out faster.

Also, about harmonic vibrations I have never seen a crankshaft shatter, and it was fortunate for me that the J30A1 engine was internally balanced. However, there was much talk amongst the Maxima drivers of shattered crankshafts after installing a UR crank pulley. This caused a huge uproar with many Maxima enthusiasts who claimed UR denied responsibility.

My pulleys gave me no major issues, but IMHO it wasn't a worthwhile mod. Just my

Excelerate

iTrader: (1)

First of all I can personally testify to this not being a problem. In addition to my CL-S I have a '99 Accord i4 w/ Turbonetics T3/T04B running 9psi and I am running the UR setup. I have never had a problem except a few squeaks in the belt once every year maybe.

Secondly to this quote this is not my statement. This is UR's and I am not going to get into this debate on harmonic balancer and dampeners b/c what will happen, as has happened a million times, is you will say A and I will say B. There have been many threads besides those misleading threads on H-T that have said UR's pulleys are fine and there a few that say they aren't. There are always going to be some who vehemently attack a product. The problem I had in the beginning is the majority of this is speculation and noobs who come onto this forum and read this thread are going to equate the UR pulley w/ problems and/or poor quality, which is far from true. So, being that you are a mod on this site, noobs will take your word, which may not be entirely supported by factual evidence, but by claims of fellow H-T members. I am not saying that their instances may have not occurred but their claims are in the end opposed by the sundry people who have good experiences with UR's pulley and their HP/TQ gains.

Josh
Excelerate LLC

sauceman

If those statements are so misleading, UR would come up with data and studies to prove their pulley is safe. Which they haven't until now. All they have to offer is a very political, re-heated answer dating back to years.

And I, being well conscious of that, have made a point of saying I thought all of the other UR products were of great quality, had tried them myself and was very satisfied. However, where I have serious doubts, I will not restrain from voicing my opinion. Any moderator would do the same.

And note that the source I have quoted from HT (gimpyaccord) is far from being a n00b, he has a pretty interesting background in re-programming F-series ECUs, as well as having succeeded in the feat of mating an H22 head to an F22 block, which was until then widely believed to be wrong. Niedejb was well known with his F22 CL, even in ACL back in the day as well. He did some serious FI as well.

I have also quoted an exterior link from the HT community as well. This doesn't stem from HT.com.

I have no doubt many people have positive experiences with the pulley, and especially no doubt imagining the gains it can provide, but that is unfortunately not a good way of discarding the negative experience that has been experienced by other folks.

And dismissing them as "not knowing their stuff" is also ignorant and lowly.

As for my part, I wouldn't keep myself from issuing a warning when I believe an aftermarket part to be potentially damaging. If I can help anyone here I would in any way that I can.

I have said what I have to say, and I don't want to harm your business either, so I'll keep it at that.

Good luck Josh!

Zapata

crank pully
comptech flywheel

dampers are there for a reason.

Zapata

sorry man there were two people on acura-cl who had the UR pullies installed and it ended up wreaking havoc on their drivetrains.

Excelerate

iTrader: (1)

That is not necessarily true. Again, you are assuming that everyone who has put these pulleys on their car may have not had a lemon or didn't abuse their car. Again, in the very seldom instances that UR crank pulleys are claimed to have done damage how do you know that if it wasn't caused by improper installation, a lemon, an abused engine, internal breakdown, etc? The fact of the matter is it that it is difficult to determine whose fault it is and maybe that is why UR has not developed studies. I don't know personally and neither does anyone here, unless they're from UR.

To Zapata, again you are talking about 2 members out of how many that put the crank pulley on their car that have had a problem? I can personally testify to the fact that I have sold over 25-30 crank pulleys to members on this board with no problems.

I am not asking you to not give your opinion; this is what the forum is for. And I'm not doubting the experience of those H-T members as I have read their post many times before. I'm talking about people who read this post who are noobs and believe it as truth. I am not calling the HT members or you a noob. I'm calling people who just get on this forum and start reading noobs who are generally willing to take believe what they read. And what you are claiming is that all UR's crank pulleys are dangerous to the life of the crank in all cars, which is not true and which is not supported by enough evidence, i.e. enough people with problems. There are thousands if not tens of thousands of people who are using UR's pulleys without any problem and to say that the minority of people who have claimed problems is not enough and everyone knows it. That is why everyone still keeps buying them.

Also, I am in no way discarding other people's experiences as I mentioned in my above post. There just may be information that needs to be revealed before pointing the blame. Maybe it was true on the part of those 2 well-know HT members. I don't know and either do you b/c neither of use were on the inside of that engine watching the pulley do the damage and neither of us disassembled it to diagnose it personally. And no one called them ignorant. Again, I said that the people who come on this board and who are noobs might not know their stuff and may believe what you write without doing their own research. Again, thanks for a lively discussion but I have to concentrate on business now. Thanks.

Josh
Excelerate LLC

Stokeless_TSX

Ok I just got done reading all this debating. And all I can say is this. No matter what the 2 of you think and what evidence you can provide its still a case by case basis. People may or may not buy the pulleys. When someone tries it on a TSX then we will have direct info on how it will work. IMHO...I have been working on turbo and high performance cars for 9 years now. Honda/Acura, Toyota, Nissan...never worked on much else. But with those we have never ran the UR pulley sets. And still made tremendous amounts of power. The mod itself just seems to be a pain. What happens when you snap a belt? Do you have to go to UR to get it or do they give you what sizes you will need at the local part store? I am asking because I really don't know the mod sounds like a PITA and I probably won't do it. But someone else here might and that kinda info is what I would be looking for if I were interested in the products.

If anyone is interested in these products check the BBB and see if UR has alot of complaints. If they have 1...hey its on you to decide but 2-3...that would push me away from thier products. Again I don't know but if someone was interested they should look all this up and do a bit more research than here on this board. Get as many opinions as you can and make your decision...don't go off of 30 posts mainly from 3 people.

Excelerate

iTrader: (1)

No one said you needed UR pulleys to make power with a F/I and high performance cars.

UR gives you complete instructions with belt part #'s and the belts can be obtained from any local parts store. They recommend Gates belts.

Again, like I said people need to research and not just go on the opinions of two people. They will generally find that the public likes the gains on the UR pulleys. Yes, there will be some with bad experiences, but that is every product.

Josh
Excelerate LLC

Zasker1

So I have read this entire thread as well as threads on multiple Honda, Scoobie, and RSX boards and I think the amout of debate out there is enought to shy me away from this mod. The only true way to test this would be to put two engines side by side, one with UR and one with out and run them for 10k miles, strip the engine down and inspect the internals. I was realy excited about this mod but it just does not seem worth it as I could spend 400 dollars else where on my car and not have to worry about my main bearings shattering.

$400 Prospects:
Carbon Fiber Hood
Hondata (2/3rd of it at least)
Header
FlyWheel
Injen CAI +ByPass
Ground Wires + Nology HotWires + New Plugs
20 VIP dances at your favorite Strip Club

jiggaman

if a mod needs this much convincing than i'm gonna stay away.

Stokeless_TSX

sauceman

dzuy

well, i can honestly say i never intend to buy pulleys.

:troutslap

rmpage

I'm bumping this because a friend of mine told me to get some underdrive pulleys for my car. But after reading this thread I don't think I want to. Two things concern me:

• I want my AC cold, PS strong, ABS solid, and alternator supplying 14 volts. Underdriving these will affect all of this significantly, right? By how much?
• I gather from this thread that the stock crank pulley is slightly asymmetrical and mounted on the crankshaft in such a manner that its mass is offset at just the right angle from the crank. Thereby it functions as a counterbalance to the unstable mass of the engine's internals. The underdrive pulley isn't designed to replicate this function? Seems pretty ridiculous considering a set of three lists for over $300, I would think they would have taken this into consideration.

I'm inclined against this mod purely out of ignorance, but if somebody can allay my concerns I'm willing to listen.

sauceman

As far as I know, with the accessory pulleys only, these aren't affected in performance. If you add the crank pulley to the equation, I don't know.

gavinn58

I'm guessing that without the crank pulley, your gains will be quite minimal. I had to lift the oem crank pulley on my accord with both arms while I could hold the UR one with one hand and wave it around.

rmpage

But if you change a driven pulley on an accessory to something larger you will be spinning just that one accessory a tiny bit slower. I guess you could opt out of slowing down your alternator and just do the AC pump or something selective like that though. With the crank/drive pulley changed to a smaller size, everything will spin slower.

I dunno, I know this is a popular thing to do in a lot of circles but it doesn't seem like a very elegant way of unlocking 5-7 hp.

DaveWhyman

I just used to drag with the AC and PS disconnected...

CCColtsicehockey

now that JTso did the throttle bottle mod from kingmotorsports I would do that hands down over this its cheaper gives better gains and isnt harmful.

jonnerd154

The pullies would yield much better gains

ForceSHO

Pully HERE & NOW

http://www.ultrarev.com/ecart/shopexd.asp?id=57359

Tsx536

^^ That looks kinda tempting but I think I have too much stereo stuff running.

If you have a deep cycle battery, would it be okay to install these pullies and still run a big stereo system?

rmpage

Probably would help. The only time the underdrives would present a problem is at very low engine RPMs, like under say 1500. I don't know the new ratios, this is just a guess, but take it as an example.

Say the underdrive pulley spins everything 10% slower than stock. The idle throttle setting on our engine is 750 RPM +/- 10 (740-760) RPM if I'm not mistaken. Then when you're at a stoplight with your 5AT in drive, parasitic loss to the TC robs a bit more, which seems like about 100 RPM according to the dash tach. Incidentally this is why I always shift into neutral at a stoplight if I'm there for more than a tiny bit. Goddamn I miss manuals.

Anyway, with a 10% underdrive, that idle will be 650 +/- 9, or 641-659 RPM. Alternators tend not to produce their requisite 14 volts sometimes even at idle, if under a heavy load. This is a significant difference, especially with the auto trans issue above. If you're at the light for a few minutes, or parked and blasting your audio with the engine idling, your alternator probably won't be kicking out 14 volts - most ones don't, just look at a car's headlights at idle when you tap the gas pedal. The closer the alternator output dips to 12 volts, the slower your battery will charge. If it goes below 12 volts, there will be a power deficit your battery will start to drain (and the light will come on in the gauge cluster). A deep cycle battery will last longer in a power deficit, but it will still drain.

But when you get above 1500 RPM, that's like spinning the accessories at a relative crank speed of 1350 RPM, which is still well above the idle point. So during driving, things shouldn't be underdriven enough to make any difference. Of course, I'm not 100% sure about the idle RPMs and I don't know what the underdrive ratio of these pulleys is, but you get the idea.

Zasker1

So after all this time and my multitude of conversations with UR, they still have not posted a Dyno for the TSX:

This is a quote from them back in February:

I got confirmation this morning from Brice at Alamo that everything checks out as per our standards. I'm awaiting dyno graphs from Brice and they will be posted shortly after the new web-page goes up later this week.