Light weight pulley's

[Christ]

Get yourself an electric motor, and some big hunks of plastic.

Make your own plastic pulleys.

Install them.

Done.

You'll save more weight than aluminum, most plastics will stand up to the belt drive without any trouble, and you can do it completely free.

It's really not too difficult to mill plastic... if you can center a hole in the blank, and then mount it on a bench grinder or something, you've just created an easy lathe-type setup.

[dann6968]

Anyone have experience with the lightweight pullies sold on ebay for cheap?

[Christ]

Originally Posted by dann6968

Anyone have experience with the lightweight pullies sold on ebay for cheap?

They're usually cheap.

That's not to say that they're any lower quality than some of the retail parts you can get, and I've always been of the philosophy that if it's a little cheaper, and still gets the job done, the quality beyond that point doesn't matter a bit.

I buy stuff from eBay for cars.

[tim3058]

Originally Posted by dann6968

Anyone have experience with the lightweight pullies sold on ebay for cheap?

Yep, bought a billet U/D pulley for the Civic (OE pulley was cracked, common issue due to thin casting, last owner cracked it pulling it off, so I had to replace anyways). Total hassle, I should have bought a used OEM pulley for $15... the ebay ad for the U/D pulley said it would fit all Civics 92-95... well it fit on the crank but the factory pulley bolt wouldn't fit inside the lower "ring", leaving it with 4-5 threads to grab on the crank. I emailed the seller, and they said it was an issue with my "non-OE" crank bolt (which was OE, got another one at the junkyard, same thing, no fit). Tried buying a $30 ARP crank bolt for ricers in the hope it would be enough longer, no luck. Paid the machine shop $5 to mill the bolt head and washer down to fit inside the pulley. And had to buy a shorter belt (which they did admit in the ad).

And someone above was dead-on... it primarily only helps during hard acceleration, which our cars rarely see. It turns slower, so the alternator has to be on "charge" mode longer, negating any fuel savings imho. Purely for acceleration (basically extends the alternator charging scenario into the future to free up power for the present take-off). Where it could come into play is by reducing the alternator drag it might allow slightly better acceleration while maintaining lean-burn on my Civic Vtec-E motor... once cruising the longer charge mode wouldn't be an issue for holding lean-burn.

Was about 1 lb lighter than the stock pulley... but my new clutch unit was 1 lb heavier... net sum zero.

[AeroModder]

Lightweight pulleys, like lightwieght flywheels, increase engine responsiveness, but have very little effect on power/economy.

[Peter7307]

Originally Posted by cfg83

Peter7307 -



Thanks for posting this. This is what I mean by a side-effect. Do you remember if the "fancy alloy spoked pulley" was OEM or ???

I think a light weight pulley may introduce the same problems because it's not OEM. That is why I wanted to know if someone on a Hyundai forum had done this.

CarloSW2

Carlos,
The one I was talking about was a set of after market pulleys fitted as part of a marine conversion of a diesel truck engine converted to marine use.

The set was to drive the water pump , two alternators and an idler for tension and to delete the power steering pump.

I was not involved in the original installation (if I had been I would have done more than a few thing differently but that is another issue) and so far as I know they were bought from a boat supply place as a set.

Hope this helps , Pete.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by tim3058

Yep, bought a billet U/D pulley for the Civic (OE pulley was cracked, common issue due to thin casting, last owner cracked it pulling it off, so I had to replace anyways). Total hassle, I should have bought a used OEM pulley for $15... the ebay ad for the U/D pulley said it would fit all Civics 92-95... well it fit on the crank but the factory pulley bolt wouldn't fit inside the lower "ring", leaving it with 4-5 threads to grab on the crank. I emailed the seller, and they said it was an issue with my "non-OE" crank bolt (which was OE, got another one at the junkyard, same thing, no fit). Tried buying a $30 ARP crank bolt for ricers in the hope it would be enough longer, no luck. Paid the machine shop $5 to mill the bolt head and washer down to fit inside the pulley. And had to buy a shorter belt (which they did admit in the ad).

And someone above was dead-on... it primarily only helps during hard acceleration, which our cars rarely see. It turns slower, so the alternator has to be on "charge" mode longer, negating any fuel savings imho. Purely for acceleration (basically extends the alternator charging scenario into the future to free up power for the present take-off). Where it could come into play is by reducing the alternator drag it might allow slightly better acceleration while maintaining lean-burn on my Civic Vtec-E motor... once cruising the longer charge mode wouldn't be an issue for holding lean-burn.

Was about 1 lb lighter than the stock pulley... but my new clutch unit was 1 lb heavier... net sum zero.

He could use an O/D pulley. Or even an OE-sized aluminum replacement.

I don't think he specified.

[Chalupa102]

When i was into modding for performance/acceleration i installed some lightweight pulleys. Unfortunately i'm not sure if they made a difference for f/e or not cuz i really wasn't keeping track at the time. I can't remember there being that much change in power either.

[wildfire8]

Wow I was not expecting to get so many responses on this topic. It was just a random question I had been wandering for while. But now I have some great feed back from you guys. There are some people on the hyundai forums that have done some light weight pulleys but not sure what their results where. Not much I would guess. I have looked at those a few times but never wanted to spend $300 on something that with add minimal power or FE.

Thanks for all the input.