I am sure this has been discussed but a search didn’t reveal any specific results, so here it is: A pulley upgrade reduces the diameter and therefore increases the speed of the internal mechanism (of the supercharger and water pump) proportionately. Shouldn’t we expect a similar decrease in the life of the related components? Also, water cavitation is a problem in many high-performance engines, which is typically dealt with by fitting a larger water pulley. Is this a problem with the pulleyed S since the water pump is driven directly off the supercharger? I am not considering a pulley upgrade at this point – just idle curiosity. I would like to hear comments.

 

I believe dpilgrim said in his 100,000 mile post that he had the 15% pulley for something like 60,000+ miles with no problems. Mine's been on for 30,000+ with no problems. :smile:

 

Eaton recommends changing blowers every 100k miles
Thus, mathmatically, a 15% pulley necessitates changing every 85k miles. That said, Eaton also says 17.2kRPM is the redline, but I'm aware of at least a few people racing their MCS's with the M45 at speeds about 18.5kRPM - no time bombs yet. [knock on pulleys]

 

Live a little, 17% no worries just more fun!

 

Does that mean that even without a pulley I can expect my SC to crap out on me?

What would a SC plus labor cost?

 

Every car has a finite life span. Nothing lasts forever. How long will it take you to get up to 100,000 miles? Will your MINI outlive your SC? Depends if it runs into anything much bigger than a breadbox and dodges a few natural disasters in the next decade.

If you want reliability over the long haul then just get an MC. You want to live in the fast lane for about 10 years then own an MCS. How much for an SC replacement plus labor? Few thousand for the part and few hundred for installation. By that time you can pick up an SC off an MCS in the junkyard most likely or at ebay.com.

Heck, your transmission or airconditioning might go bad long before the SC.

As far as we can tell, the long term life of pulley upgraded SC is reasonably long that we are not overly concerned. It's going to take some time to see if that holds true. John Cooper Works seems to think that their SC upgrade is rock solid enough to offer a warranty on their upgrade. One also needs to be concerned about driving technique and running the engine at high rpms for sustained periods of time. You're wearing not just the SC, water pump, &pulley belt, but also the entire engine.

 

I just don't want to accelerate wear. I will hit the 100,000-mile mark much sooner than it is paid off. I sold my GTI with over 325,000 miles on it but it looked and ran like it had 25,000.

 

Hey, Ryan, what's the maximum speed the SC turns without the pulley mod? Given the way it works, I assume the SC rpm is some constant times the engine rpm so that engine redline is something less than or equal to SC redline.

Mark

 

During cruising and lighter throttle positions, the supercharger is still spinning but b/c of the bypass valve it is not doing any work. It's not compressing air. One of the benefits, therefore, of a smaller pulley (and the smaller the better) is you'll find yourself at low RPMs and less throttle more often. So although if you floor your MINI and run it near redline a lot, you will be spinning (and working) your supercharger more, with the smaller pulleys you will actually find yourself at lower RPMs more often and you MIGHT be flooring it "a little" less often. That may (or may not) make up to the extra spinning you do at other times.

 

Rationalize away, greatgro!

Drive one that's been pullied & you will get one, Rick.