OK I have had the ZPI Anodized pulley since the ZPI shootout. I turbo'd my car about 4 weeks ago and had the pulley on the turbo'd car for about a week before I took it off. I had a guy email me wanting to buy my pulley so I got it out to take a look at it before I shipped it to this guy. Under closer look This is what I found!



Keep in mind that I didnt install this pulley myself. ZPI installed it at the ZPI shootout and it wasnt touched since. If you didnt notice Where the grove is for the line up thingy is broken. After seeing this I wouldnt suggest this mod to anyone.

 

I'm going to go ahead and keep an eye on where this goes

 

Looks like in putting it on, it hit where it near the groove and then locked into the groove as it was pushed on... still looks very sound and shouldn't have been a problem... you may have never known it was there... but, not the best thing...

 

I emailed the guy back and told him I cant sell it to him. No way would I do that to someone. I mean this is just my 2 cents but this is the first pulley Ive seen that came off a turbo'd tC. Now I would never suggest this mod to anyone. I can tell you right now it wasnt an install error. Lucky I checked out my crank where the pulleys goes on and there isnt any damage that I can see.

 

i dont have a pic of it but my stock pulley came out cracked when i went to install my zpi pulley on there around the same place where yours is cracked, but mine is worse. i dont think it has to do with the zpi pulley at all

 

I'm sure there's no damage there on the crank, you can clearly see the knotch on the outside, and how it moves inward toward the groove...which would lead me to believe strongly that it happened as the result of the pulley being a little off when forced on and the knotch on the crank taking a bite out of the pully groove. I can't imagine how'd that be the result of any operational aspect causing that damage... I don't have the ZPI pulley, but have seen this happen before when pulleys are put on...

I wouldn't sell it as well, but I wouldn't attribute it to a Turbo install, or using it under high rpms or high hp.

 

This should be titled "Warning to ALL crank pulley owners" Throughout the last few years i've heard of numerous people putting this mod on their car regardless of type of car, and have heard this happen to just about every one over a matter of time. Maybe the ZPI one goes a little quicker, but soon all will do the same. Sorry to rain on anyone's parade but i find it to be true

 

What is happening? We've discussed harmonic vibrations and such again and again, but I'd be interested to see how that specific kind of damage would occur as the result of use...

 

Well I can say is I'm a non believer in the crank pulleys now. I dont care how this happened or if it would of cause more damage down the road. My point is something that NST and ZPI swear by(Lightwieght crank pulleys) broke on my car. I'm not trying to bash anyone or any company, just showing everyone what happened to me to try and help them from having problems.

 

That sucks man.
Definatly not a mod I would consider anyway. Ill just stick with my fidanza flywheel. :D

 

Harmonics talk is in the crankshaft, not for the pulley. That right there is exesive wear. Is that the version #1 of ver. 2.0 from ZPI?

 

its version 2, version one just had lots of circles cut out.

 

just watching to see.

 

That is an install error and nothing else. Someone hammered it on without lining it up properly. This has nothing to do with Harmonics or the durability of a crank pulley.

 

Not saying it caused this.. but... harmonic vibrations in the crank are caused by torsional vibrations (not just harmonic balancing).. which are dampened by the stock pulley on most engines including ours. So the two are very closely related. The pulley is designed to dampen these vibrations stock.

 

Damn that sucks. Yah I have an NST crank pulley but decided against installing it once I ordered my turbo. I was pretty scared that something like that would happen with all the extra tq/hp. Glad nothing happened to your car.

 

Looks like a imperfection when the pulley was installed. Mind you we did install this in like 3 minutes in front of 50 people.

The keyway has a whole is still solid we have seen stock pulleys look much worst than this taking them off. This would not affect the performance or the reliability of the pulley and if you would like us to replace it with a new one I will with out question.

You would only want to be concerned with the pulley if the keyway had hollowed out or if the hole was no longer square and it was wavy. We have seen pulleys installed by shops and they did not line up the keyway and impacted it on. This still did not cause a reliability problem just messed our pulley all up.

 

Well I wanted to sell this pulley anyway cause I didnt want to use it for the turbo but now I feel like I cant or shouldnt sell it.

 

Refund?

 

Heh the irony is that all the anti-pulley arguments stem from unpredictable engine damage and decreased engine life, not damage to the pulley itself :p