trdsparks

Who's your friend?

HighlanderMac

Can anyone get some pics of where they have the leak?

THansenite

Ahhh, they have paperwork involved. I didn't realize that it said that in the warrenty info. I guess I will keep my sights set on a turbo.

Scion-ce

which will void your warranty just as fast

HighlanderMac

OK, here are some pics of what I have, but its been like this since before my pulley went on... sooo, who knows





Oh and just for a peak at whats hopefully soon coming.

mtxgalant96

I don't have the leak either. I have the 9psi pulley on and had it on since December. Put about 5,000miles on it. The only possible oil problem I see is on the outside of the intake manifold. It's a puddle like shape as if the oil soaked into it. Hasn't caused me any problems, but I was concerned for awhile.

As for the oil pressure. I have an electrical oil pressure gauge. Reads good! 40-60psi under normal driving. 80-85 psi under hard driving. And 15psi at idle.

Scion-ce

what is that an even smaller pulley? Man, you sure like to push your luck

HighlanderMac

Heheheh, hey man, if the businesses won't do it, I will. Just trying to help you guys out here on SL... Going to prolly be making a custom FMIC that we may be able to sell... I have to see about not piping it up and around the motor, so as not to loose as much boost, but this pulley should help that out..

trdsparks

This is true but if you were going to get the S/C and change the pulley anyway you're better off going with the turbo.

OutCrnrU

from the pictures it looks like the problem may be due to faulty install. When you get the kit those allen screws are loose so you can properly align the unit before tightening everything down. ITs possible the technician could have over tightened the allen screws which would break the inner seal and cause the leak, either way, thats not a problem you want to see, I hope everything works out for you ok

kytc

Well I checked mine today and I don't have any leaking oil around the s/c shaft. There was a small, small puddle of oil in the garage after I pulled out yesterday but it wasn't from the s/c shaft. I'm going to try and jack up the car and check out the engine pretty thoroughly tomorrow to see if oil is leaking anywhere. If some without the smaller pulleys are having problems as well then that is good news for us that are running them. If this is a widespread problem though I'm really disappointed with TRD if it is a design problem and not a manufacturing problem which it could be considering some of us have oil leakage and some don't and we all have around the same mileage numbers.

trdsparks

Actually it wouldn't mean anything for the guys with a pulley because you no longer have a warranty.

So even if it were a faulty install no one with a pulley has any grounds to do anything about it really. It'a all in writing.

OutCrnrU

Check your oil feed line, mine was leaking oil a little whcih it drips on the tranny, then might make its way to the ground, mine didnt but I caught it pretty fast. HTH

hPower

So you are saying that yours seemed to have a leak before you swapped to a smaller pulley?

I just can not see why a pulley would lead to such problems. We are talking about seals and the shaft here. Obviously there is some form of oil or something flowing around internally to keep things lubricated and cool, right? If these seals are faulty, or if they are weak then we should see leaks and problems. It should not matter what size pulley you have on there.

You could argue that swapping to a different pulley could potentially add more stress or strain, but that would only be the case if the pulley was HEAVIER than the stock one. We all know this is not the case.

Maybe this is a result of a pulley, maybe not. But please, lets not all jump on the "blame the pulley bandwagen." All I am asking for is lets try to explore other areas and ideas as well and keep an open mind so we can find the real source for sure.

trdsparks

I agree. We don't know that a pulley cause any damage. But it is funny that the guys that are having this problem all have smaller pulleys. It may just be a coincidence. But if the S/C starts spinning faster it will increase the oil pressure inside the S/C and could directly effect the seals. That could be the very reason TRD said not to change the pulley in the first place.

kytc

Vortech ranks the s/c up to 19 psi. To say this s/c unit can't handle 9 lbs of boost is ridiculous. You know the reason TRD said don't change the pulley? The same reason why they went with vortech instead of turbonetics - too much horsepower and too many extra parts (engine management, etc.) for too many people that don't know squat about forced induction. Because for every one of us on here that knows about our s/c and what we're doing I guarantee there's at least 3-5 other people that has no clue what they had put on there car besides "it's faster". They don't want to have to fix warranty claim after warranty claim for people that didn't get the extra parts needed to up the boost.

The only two reasons that seem reasonable to me are installation error or design error. I could be wrong but I'm guessing the rumors about people not running pulleys and having problems are true.

lundy

A litlle off subject but anybody else scattered the s/c. I dont know if its scattered so to say but def. some spun bearings or something. Only had it for 6k. Just dropped it off at scion to have them look at it and hopefully warranty it. But i was running somebody on the freeway when i completely lost boost in 4th gear and s/c got real loud. Just wondering if anybody has even heard of anything like this?

Basstrack17

our sc has been fine, 16k on the car, 6k+ on the sc. No leaks, etc; and we still have the stock pulley. I don't think the extra boost would cause a problem per say, but am wondering if the smaller pulley could be putting more load on the shaft itself, which in turn could affect the shaft itself. Just a thought. I hope the smaller pulleys aren't an issue as at some point down the road we'd like to continue working/building on ours... but am definitely waiting a bit to see how the reliability/longevity of these mods are.

kytc

I'm checking to see if I find oil again tomorrow and if so where it's coming from. I'll tell everybody what I find tomorrow. If something happens to go wrong with mine and I can't get it fixed I'll be going to Turbonetics.

hPower

I could not agree with you more!