Its not a money grab believe me. Many guys that do pulley installs want to put on a new belt. When you buy a pulley from my guy here in Florida (and your having him do the install) a new belt is automatic. Appreciate they don't want to have any associated problems caused by a part that does stretch and wear out, as well is relatively inexpensive. By replacing the belt when doing the pulley pretty much guarantees them you leave as a happy customer and you won't be returning anytime soon w/ issues.

In 07, I was on a dyno, the belt looked good, the tensioner indicated , yet it was slipping during the pulls. I change my belt now every year regardless of what the tensioner says. There are NAM members (autoxers or tracksters) who change there belts every 5,000 miles.

 

there's more to that story with LDG but rest assured, no need to go into it here.

so, by the book, my belt is in good shape based on the holes in the tensioner?

 

to my untrained eye the tensioner hole looks to be right were it's supposed to be.

 

Looks fine *shrug*. That's about where mine is...

 

**update**

well to confirm my suspicion I drove back to Massachusetts (going to MTTS here) and went to the gentleman who installed my Cravenspeed pulley. I had purchased an Alta V1.0 Pulley in case the pulley was the problem. We laid the pulleys side by side and you could easily see that the Cravenspeed pulley was shorter causing the belt to rub against the outer portion of the pulley. It was a mfg defect. The whole point of my post was if I had used a NAPA belt on day 1...this would have been caught on day 1. I will be contacting Cravenspeed when they open today to see what or if they will do anything for me since it was obviously a MFG defect.

 

Oh and now my car is smooth, quiet, and running perfect =)

 

Thanks for the update!

Jeremy

 

update... Cravenspeed has looked at the pulley and did not find a defect with it. Kellen at Cravenspeed tried everything he could to find a problem with it but found none. As to why the Alta pulley V1.0 resolved the issue is unknown. I don't want to mess with my Mini by reinstalling the Cravenspeed pulley and diagnosing it as the mechanic who did the install is almost 400 miles away. I am sad that there was no defect found with it, as if there was a defect found I could justify all the hassle I went through.