as the title of the thread asks. Has there been any failure of an engine due to the lightened crank pulley?

 

I have the M7 2% crank pulley, in the car now for over a month now and so far no issues.

 

and cue the proverbial can of worms.......

I had one for 20k miles. no problems. Put the stock back on when I went turbo.

I suggest you take to heart, only the info from people who have actually used them. Whether to the positive or negative. You are gonna get a ton of armchair quarterbacking on this topic.

 

well its skeptical... i get a weird whine from either the water pump, the alternator or the A/C during hot weather with the A/C running for awhile, dealer blames the crank pulley and says the alternator needs to be replaced, and then promptly asked for 1000 for it.... i wanted to give them the finger, but said i will wait it out

now... nearly a year since, with 2 years on the Alta 2%, still no problem, no start up problems, nothing

 

Isn' that what we do best?

 

Good luck finding someone with problems that were caused directly related to the l/w crank pulley....The only thing that I have seen so far were faulty crank pulleys...they were immediately re-called by the manufacturer...other than that there are many thousands out there running without issues…Even if there were one or two cases, that’s not bad considering how many people have them!

Ultimately it up to you, the consumer to make the decision…

 

Not to mention the failure rate of the early OE units, with no re-call...Nada

 

Technically speaking, it's a bad idea to ditch a proper "damper" for anything without any damping ability. And last time I checked, the stock damper is a mass damper, as an engine that really needs one to absorb crankshaft harmonics will fail without one. That said, I don't think anyone here knows if a Mini engine really needed one, or Mini was just being overly cautious.

So, if you're going to gamble, a short forged steel crankshaft like our 4 cyl's have is about the safest one to gamble with taking a damper off and putting a plain pulley on. On a long crank, like a V8 or straight 6, 12 etc., I wouldn't even consider this.

As for problems, you won't have anything like starting, or other BS. If anything does happen, it'll be a broken crankshaft at some point in time. I haven't seen this happen on a Mini, but I have on other cars.

 

Out of curiosity, what kind of start-up problems could potentially arise?

 

As said earlier, stick to comments from those that actually have installed them and have some mileage on them.

I installed a 2% M7 pulley about a year ago, some 20,000 miles later, no issues, no drama, no kidding.

Get one, get the Altanator pulley as well (it slows down the Alternator), and happy motoring!!!

 

1.5 years and running strong on Alta 2% crank pulley, 3 years on 15% reduction Webb Pulley, 39 k miles

 

Still rockin here

65K+ miles, 15% since new 03, 2% since 06 with 45K, 20,000 miles later and redline everyday we go out and...this dreaded myth hasn't died yet?:impatient

 

Guess not..... The myth lives... & the early dampers continue to fail, go figure....

 

I think we need to be clear on what we're saying is "the myth"... there is no myth that engines have a multitude of harmonics/resonances from the firing order, angle, crankshaft type, number of cylinders, etc., and some engines flat out need the dampers to survive. Especially if you're putting on a lightweight flywheel too.

OTOH, the only thing we're concerned with is how Mini's survive with them, and these little engines seem to survive just fine without them far as anyone can tell by the boards. Since the factory themselves lightened the OEM damper on '05-06 models it's probably a good indication that Mini even decided the crank didn't need as much damping.

I'd be curious to see how many people have done the alu crank pulley and the LTW flywheel (long term). As that's the toughest pairing on crank harmonics, and I was debating which one to do. Obviously crank is easier but the F/W usually gives greater results, so I may just wait til I need a new clutch.

 

No doubt about harmonics, depending on the weight & length of the crank, you can see it with a strobe when it's being balanced. There are plenty of OE small 4 cylinder engines that have been built over the past 50 years without a damper, just a pulley. They survived the average back yard hop up with kids like me making go fast 1952 Singer. This would include the Judson SC applied to a 998 Austin engine. I raced an x groupe 44 GT6 for some years, just a steel pulley ( with as light as possible clutch assy. & flywheel ), ran it to 86 - 8800rpms without a crank failure. All 4 of the 911s I owned had nothing more than a steel pulley & all those flywheels & clutches were altered.
The early Mini dampers when they fail shortly after the war, I really mean war not the other word I can't spell, period ends, if it's going to fail they cause big dammage. If there has been a failure with an aluminum pulley, it's never been posted here ( that I'v read or found ).
To make what we are saying clear:
There was a debate, some time back, about the safety of using aluminum pullies on NAM. There were pros & cons. Since there is no evidence to support a failure, it's become a myth.
My car is an 03 "S" with an 06 damper. Without trying to reinvent the wheel, I have some thought, good or bad, that BMW has a reason for a damper on this engine. It could be for no other reason but to absorbe vibration that could be transmitted into the cabin. We don't want that..... On the other hand I don't believe there is any reason that the Mini "S" engine needs a crank damper, whether you have OE stock or lightened flywheel, clutch assy or whatever.

Besides the "myth" I'm having a bad hair day...

 

edit: nm, I could care less about getting caught up in this.

 

M7 16/2% pulleys NO PROBLEMO! after 8 months and 40k miles, 3 track schools and miles of midnight mountain runs, only problem seems to be exsessive tread loss on front tires, but the dealer blames it on switching to non-run-flats.

 

10K miles... no problems.