I'm just bored while waiting for updates on the WMS exhaust, hoping that WMS will change the bolts for the HDI, wondering if M7 AGS v.3 will have a successor as well, and waiting for pics of the M7 black STB. My life is being consumed by this forum. Somebody stop me. At this rate, I'll fail the GRE and GMAT or at least do very poorly on them as I don't think failure is possible. Anyways, I've been considering the crank pulley and looked at the m7 and alta crank pullies. And while both are similar, the alta says it is .9 lbs and the m7 says it is .99lbs. Everything else held constant, the alta should be better, right? Are there any other factors that are important?

Also, what do you think is a reasonable time for a shop to charge me for this install? 1 hour?

Help me. Please, help me.

 

read the dinan site about crank pullies...everyone raves about them...and that's nice while the car is young...but I KNOW someone....not heard about...who put one on and not a month later threw a rod...

I AM NOT SAYING THIS WILL HAPPEN...

I am just saying get all the info you can first.....

The Danger of Power Pulleys & Understanding the Harmonic Damper


other wise..if you are compfy with all that...I say pick you favorite vendor...I don't think either of the pulleys will out do one another....although the alta is .09 lighter than the M7...but I dunno if that matters as I will prolly never test such a thing to find out...LOL...

 

Ahh, good old Tuls. I can always count on you to be up this late.

 

late? heh heh

 

A competent shop ought to require no longer than 1.5 hours to complete a crank pulley removal and install. The process is much easier than a SC pulley, as it only requires the clearance in the front passenger wheelwell to access the crank pulley.

I concur with Tuls - functionally, you would not be able to feel the difference between .09 pounds of rotational mass at the crank. I went with the M7 because it was more readily available to me than the Alta, and it turns out I preferred the aesthetics of the M7. My tuner shop, which is a distributor for both Alta and M7 products, had a slight preference for the M7 based on their perception of the quality of construction. Both the Alta and M7 are feasible options if you decide to go with the oversized crank pulley. I apologize if that doesn't help you with your choice.

 

Yea, I like the look of the M7 as well, I'm not a big fan of having logos "cheesy logos" stamped on my stuff. That's just my personal preference on the cheesiness of the logo and actual branding. Oddly, I want WMS stamped on the exhaust tips of the new WMS exhaust and HDI. That's a whole other topic though. Back to crank pullies. C'mon the M7 is .09 lbs heavier!! I guess I have two choices to make:

1) Do I want a crank pulley since I want to keep my car forever?

2) Does .09lbs make that big of a difference?

The forum is dead at this hour. I figure that's late enough.

 

"2) Does .09lbs make that big of a difference?" No, not realy.
With a race engine, if .09lbs was all you could remove, I would do it but for a street application it would hardly be worth it.

 

Another thing to consider is M-7 only offers 0% and 2% where Alta offers 0%,2%,3%, and 4%. Also Roland at GT has crank pulley's which have a steel insert to mate with your crank so if you ever have to remove it their is less chance of having aluminum weld left on your crank. From an engineering standpoint that does have some merit although I've not heard of anyone having a problem in removal.

 

Does looks matter? Even though once its installed it is never seen...

Both pullies have the brand name and size on them.

 

Yea, forgot to post on my previous thread that it shouldn't matter since they've never seen, but I forgot.

Regarding both having the logo, that's true, but the ALTA doesn't look as ?refined? as the M7 logo. I have no other way to word it.

Ahh, I just got a quote from my shop and they want $160 for the install... that just seems steep to me.

 

My shop estimated 1.0 to 1.5 hours SO @ 75.00 per hour labor the cost would be between 75.00 to 112.50

 

I would do MTH or other remap way before the crank pulley.

 

That's an interesting perspective, and I'd like to share some of my experience with MTH and the crank pulley.

Approximately a month before going with an 2% overdrive crank pulley, I loaded the MTH software (w/Alta CAI, 15% reduction pulley, OBX header). Very nice gains across the entire powerband.

After installing the crank pulley, I noticed I was getting pre-ignition detonation pinging at WOT above 3K RPM. I asked Volker at MTH to fiddle a little with the timings in my MTH tuner file to prevent that. He was kind enough to ensure that I knew I would be sacrificing some power in order to alleviate the pinging. After loading the new file, it helped a little, but I was still experiencing some pinging.

Finally, yesterday I put in some Denso IK24 spark plugs. Finally, no more pinging, much smoother powerband, and particularly crisp throttle response. I will be reloading the original MTH file before I had it modified for the crank pulley to see if the pinging returns, just to satisfy my own curiosity.

So just to complicate the matter, remember that an overdrive crank pulley will give you a little more boost, and that you may need to expend more time and money to play with your A/F ratios. It's all part of the fun of modding.

 

Why are you using IK24 sparkplugs? Are they cooler than the IK22 sparkplugs that everybody around here uses?

 

yes the IK24 is colder than the IK22 (one heat range colder). The idea here is to eleviate the detonation seen by the crappy CA 91 octane gas. The only issue with running too cold of a plug is fouling, but its probably better to foul than to ping.

 

Oh, okay, that makes sense. What's fouling? Man, I should've known this earlier. I would've gone for the IK24s than the IK22s.

 

fouling is basically the opposite of detonation, where the A/F ratio is too rich.
http://www.sparkplugs.com/sparkplug4...Fouling&mfid=0

 

No, you didn't do wrong. Like haulinS states, it's better to foul your plugs than to have your engine pinging - considering that the IK22 and IK24 were the same price, I simply decided I would go with colder plugs and check them every so often to see if they were fouling. Denso's site recommends a step colder for every gain of 75 or so horses, but I did some research and found that no one who were using IK24's reported fouling - like the old adage, "No harm, no foul."

Since I will be leaving the country for 3.5 months and my Mini will be in the hands of another driver for that duration of time, I preferred to play it safe and resolve any pinging issues before I go abroad. I ultimately decided that by going with IK24's, I would have some insurance against pinging while my Mini was in someone else's custody.

Back OT - the crank pulley is a great mod, whether you go with the Alta or M7. I, too, thought the M7 looked more refined.

 

I have had some drama installing, or should I keeping a pulley installed which is worth keeping in mind.
First I shoud say that Peter at M7 is a really upstanding guy that is very interested in any issues a person has with any of his products. I have had to call him several times regarding the M7 pulleys and he was a tremendous help.
Each of my several installs and removals only took maybe an hour at the most, no reason anyone, especially a professional should take longer, or they're milking you.
The several pulleys I have installed came from a run of machining that were slightly off on the inside diameter of the pulley shaft. So they would begin to spin against the crankshaft since there is no keyway on the crankshaft stub, it is only a friction fit that is completely dependent upon an exact fit.
Peter has resolved the issue and will soon be shipping the improved crankshaft pulleys, and only a small batch (of which I ended up with two of them) were affected and his machinist figured out the issue.
I don;t know what kind of customer service Alta has but it couldn't possibly be as good as M7s.
Happy motoring!!!

 

pberry51mini Thank you for the good word...

A small batch of pulleys was affected due to a batch of anodization that
didn't come out right. The company that anodized the pulleys decided to
strip them down and start over Now this is a very bad idea as the stripping
of the coating will also take away aluminum, we're talking thousands of an inch but that's all it took. We are now adding a slightly different geometry
to the pulley/crank interface that will solve the above problem....

peter
Team M7
562-608-8123

 

Any damage done to the crank nose with this slipping issue?

 

Well, if you look at the WMS page on crank pulleys all the data he came up, using our free crank pulley, is now copied to the M7 page. So they must be the same...

Seriously though, the weight isn't a huge deal. But the ALTA is lighter. Our larger selection of sizes is very nice for those to really add that slight advantage from one car to another or a JCW guy not wanting to replace the pulley. Our logo is laser engraved onto the pulley which looks very crisp and clean compared to any other type of marking. In fact the laser engraving is nearly as accuate as machining. Same method used on Cam gears to mark the degree marks. Our logo is now filled in, not outlined like the picture.

As far as customer service goes, i think if you ask around you will find many happy ALTA customers. If we didn't have outstanding, quick customer service, we wouldn't be here today.

On a side note with the spark plugs, in CA, every car should use the colder range IK or equivelent. In general, Heat range 8 (stock is 6, normal upgrade is 7) plugs will not foul unless you are in an a very cold climate. But with super rich mixtures (like the stock Mini) it might happen a little more often. The heat range 8 on a tuned car(like MTH, Unichip....) they would be nearly flawless, and probably make more HP. All the AZ guys and gals should try these, i bet they will have great results!

 

Why can't we all just love each other?

 

I think there's something here just below the surface that needs some 'splainin about why Randy Webb, who used to be the Alta poster child, now appears to be completely devoid of Alta product (at least on his website).

 

Whose pulleys is he using these days?