Marcus Frost

The key on the crank does not protrude the entire length of the keyway, only about 3/8ths of an inch or 1/2 inch, as indicated by the ring visible on the inside of the shaftway in the pictures Victor posted.

-m

splinter

Understood. I stand corrected.

al@cpt

The key is short, it is not as long as the key way in the pulley.

lbE55

This is why I do business with VRP.

Stand-up guys!

bfnnrgn

I'll check mine as well when I get home and put up a video. I've always noticed some wobble and though I've not shreaded a belt the supercharger belt does squeal and not just at startup. It's been getting progressively worse to where it will squeal for miles even after startup. I used to be able to turn the belt around and make it stop for a while but it just starts squealing again.

jangy

Not to get involved, but I'm actually glad that both vendors are posting.

First, my car is a good test bed for the pulley. I have put almost 20K HARD miles on it. Yes, I posted that I saw a slight wobble. But, I also posted that it was actually me being ****. Since then, I have seen 4 stock ones and 3 RennTech's and all were the same. My car runs strong and no leaks or anything from the seal. BTW, look at the grooves for movement.

Lets also be clear on the damage and not lose track of the data and evidence. The question at hand is if the pulley was installed improperly, which would have caused damage, or was it defective, making it fail under "normal" install and use.

The reason i don't buy raw materials causeing the pulley metal shattering under load is that i am pretty sure VRP did not have these pulleys made from scratch. The materials, etc. are likely standard just sized and shaped to fit our cars. So, maybe something in the design at that area?

By install, I don't think we can only look for break direction etc. during cranking of the bolt. IF this is what happened, here is a scenario:
1 - The pulley is not fully seated when cranked.
2 - car starts and the pulley becomes loose, because it has that room left where it wasn't seated. Now, the damage may have happened when the SC clutch kicked in or maybe after the pulley worked its way for a bit.

Either way, I can tell you from experience that a good engineer can look at it and tell you exactly what types of power it took to break it and where the likely direction was. IF EITHER MOTOR IS DAMAGED, I would bring in a partial party NOW.

Big ups to both vendors again. I will always work with VRP and now, i am happy to see that LEt is also tight!

Marcus Frost

Jangy - with all due respect this kind of "faith" in a pulley manufacturer is simply problematic. We need objectivity, not assumptions. If we simply used assumptions, the crank pulley manufacturer knows what they are doing, VRP knows what they are doing, and CPT knows what they are doing - we are left with an impossible conundrum.

Our cars require a lot of torque and there is no "standard" for metal strength when it comes to pullies, be they crank pullies or whatever. The material used for the inner portion of the pulley should have been subjected to the stresses reflective of the crank bolt being torqued to spec and backed out from there. I am willing to bet this was not done and that a Rockwell test is in order to test the hardness of the material.

1.) Impossible. It would have to have been 1/2" off seat and would not have damaged the keyway like what has been illustrated. I know the guy at CPT who did the install and this isn't his first Kompressor crank pulley install, he's not leaving the crank pulley out 1/2" and then using the crank bolt to seat it.

2.) If you are saying that the pulley remained unseated even after torquing it down you would have a significant misalignment of the belts not to mention all kinds of other havoc. Again, not possible.

My motor has not been damaged and I would venture a guess Wayne's wasn't either. This all does peg back to my 3rd issue - that is, the idea that wobbling crank pulleys are not limited to VRP products. Some stock AMG cars have wobbling crank pulleys and like Steve said - that is fundamentally NOT a good thing. Putting those stresses on bearings will, in the long term, have negative effects on the longevity and durability of the bottom end of the motor.

There is a more profound discussion regarding this topic here beyond this issue with the VRP pulley. I'm hoping someone else will chime in here and post their thoughts as our friend from Italy did.

-m

bfnnrgn

Well I got home and examined my pulley and it does wobble quite a bit at idle. It seems to smooth out some at higher RPM. My camera is old and the videos are so small and the quality so poor you can't really see it wobbling. That and the heat coming up off the engine kicked up by the fan kept burning my hand as I tried to hold the camera.

There is some kind of alignment issue with my pulley as the belt is squealing and has been getting progressively worse. Turning it around stopped it for a while until it started to wear on that side which is a sure sign of a pulley alignment problem. Is it the pulley or the install though? Mine was installed at the Houson location.

Video

dyno

till now I got the idea that either the key was wrong-sized
or the keyway was wrong sized

but it would be not less important to get an answer about the point below ..

LZH

Like the assumption you made here:

Please don't take this the wrong way as I am not trying to be a jerk. I simply think that your logic needs to be questioned. Being a Kleeman dealer and having done numerous other pulley installs does not make the installer exempt from making small mistakes. And as you know, even the smallest mistake with a crank pulley can have exponentially greater effects at redline and high revs.
There are lots of the pulleys floating around and plenty of users that have not had problems. To me that means they have been designed and engineered by someone who knows what they are doing. The same cannot be said for every installer. Not to mention the bolts were "thrown away". I find that odd and suspicious....especially considering the reason for the pulley removal/inspection and being sent back etc.
One question.....are these pulleys sent to installers/retailers WITH bolts ?? If so, the bolts should have been saved after removal for inspection.

Vadim @ FD

bfnnrgn: Check accessories pulleys, sometimes they go bad and can cause belt sqeak. Talk to Sunil and have him check your car out.

If you have any questions feel free to call me.

jangy

Marcus, you and Wayne are going through a crappy situation and I am only trying to help. I feel for you both and am happy that you are taking an objective approach.

jangy

Could something have siezed the bolt?

Was the "stuff" there before the failure or did it show up after?

jangy

Not saving the bolts during a troubleshooting is a little shady, but we don't know the actual steps that occurred. They may not have even known that stretch bolts can be measured. My pulley was installed with a new bolt for an OEM E55 pulley. I see where you are going with saying that it should have been included if it was part of a "kit", but these aren't considered that way....

You do bring up another design point. Is the OEM bolt the proper size? I never checked the size of the knub vs an OEM one. I simply assumed they were the same but maybe not?

Vadim @ FD

Marcus, look at the picture below:


These are aluminum crank pulleys that I designed for evosport for C32. In 2002 we could not find a damper manufacturer that was interested in making one to our specs. So I had it made out of billet aluminum and used it on my car for over 120,000 miles without any problems. Evosport sold over 250 of ODPS kits with solid crank pulley and not a single problem with crank pulley running 19 lbs. of boost.

The reason why the aluminum survived is simply because woodruff key's function is not to keep the pulley from spinning off, it is to locate it on the crank.

Stretch bolt, that requires a lot of effort to be properly installed, is what keeping the pulley from spinning. When it is stretched, it becomes a spring and applies over 250 lbs/in. of force against the snout and pulley surfaces.

When the bolt is not properly installed the load side of the slot on the pulley becomes elongated. Over six years that I been working on Kompressor AMGs, I have seen this happen many, many times on ASP, Renntech and Kleemann pulleys. I have seen it happen on as stock pulley as well, when leaky oil seal was replaced.

Doing the last 90 deg. step requires a lot of physical effort with a breaker bar. It does not always happen.... and this is the result.

ChicagoX

A few things need to be cleared up:

1) There was never any paint, polish, or other substance put on the pulley after removal. It came off my car, went in a box, was shipped to VRP. Any other suggestion is insulting, untruthful, and an attempt at misdirection.

2) My bolt was not saved, as I was not interested in doing a forensic analysis on this at the time. I wanted that pulley off my car and the ASP on as quickly as possible, since my track rental was imminent. As it ended up, my car missed the event I organized.

3) I WAS STONEWALLED FOR THREE WEEKS. It was only after I contacted Victor and Vadim directly that there was ANY movement on this.

4) VRP took no responsibility, initially. Per our telephone conversations and e-mails, everyone was blamed for potentially mis-handling, mis-installing, or generally fudging up the whole thing, except VRP.

5) I offered to both take pictures and send the pulley back - without a refund. Victor then said that he would refund me anyway to get this deal closed, as it had BEEN THREE WEEKS already. He then contacted me a half-day later, stating that I needed to seek a refund from LET, since they sold me the pulley, and he would only issue them a refund after part analysis.

6) At this point, I took a defensive position. I would return the pulley after proof of refund for a defective, unwanted product was underway.


Up to now, this concerned no-one. Now, since I (or my shop) have been accused of doctoring the part, I no longer feel compelled to keep this matter private.

The issue, plain and simple, is that this part is not made to needed spec. As Marcus correctly stated, the piece cannot withstand the install to factory torque requirements. The shop has installed more AMG crank pulleys than VRP has had manufactured, and this is the first issue to have cropped up.

Throughout this ordeal, LET and CPT have stepped up in every way imaginable. VRP has not, as further evidenced by the blame game in this very thread. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement. I originally bought the VRP pulley because I thought it was the best; I would now buy STOCK in LET if I could.

Vadim @ FD

Wayne, please read my post. It was very clearly an installation mistake.

Since you are getting very emotional about this, I have to conclude that there are background issues coming out from this.

Like LET introducing their own pulley design..................

SLK55R

Now it starts ...

ChicagoX

Thanks for continuing with the finger-pointing. Classy.

BTW, I'm STILL waiting on the remainder of the refund that was issued "no questions asked..."

ChicagoX

Your guys installed this one Vadim.

vrus

Wayne.. Why are you getting upset towards me? I've done nothing but try to be fair during all of this.

I never pointed the finger and said you doctored anything, nor did I say that CPT did. In fact, you never entered my mind because you had nothing to do with the install... BUT, for a moment, isn't it possible that the tech made a mistake, panic'd when the pulley got damaged so that you wouldnt be upset and tried to pass it off as a bad pulley and then the damage was covered up before you got it back?

I am not pulling this stuff out of thin air and making it up.. You can see what I am talking about as plain as day.

All I said was that what I saw looked like there was a black substance covering the area that was damaged. Does it not look this way to you from the photos I posted?

When metal on metal contact occurs, isn't it common for the metal that is damaged to show through in raw form? This was not the case here. I'm sorry but that is what I see and is the only explanation I have.

I've never seen this type of damage occur on a pulley before that was related to a part failure. It's always been installation error.

If this part was not made to spec, the other 18 pullies would show the same issues and damage.

Jangy's pulley was installed and removed at least 4times so far with no visible damage.

I really don't understand why you are showing anger towards us... You made the initial post warning people about wobbling pullies and damage. I am only posting the information I have of what you originally aired publically. I said that I would post the pics and info and that's what I did.

I am trying to rationalize what happened and trying to come up with a conclusion.

The bottom line is I dont want to be punished for something that is not our fault.

And you even end things by saying we didn't step up.. So me sending off money to you guys and waiting for the pulley to be returned after the fact is not stepping up?

WAYNE: I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST YOU NOR DO I HOLD ANY ILL FEELINGS.

All I want is to find out what REALLY happened to the pulley. If someone made a mistake and it didn't get installed properly, then they should own up and take the hit for the refund, not me.

If we deem that the pulley really was defective then we've already taken the hit by sending off the refund.

I posted this information only to update the thread that you initially posted so please dont be upset with me for trying to explain and provide data.

I dont want this to turn into a big argument. I just want to get to the bottom of it and that's it.

AMGSC

It's sad when the internet is used in this way. We are talking about people's livelihoods here. Even Ebay reminds buyers/members to use caution/restraint before posting negative feedback.

In this case, if a refund was already issued sight unseen, then I don't know what else the seller can do. I know I blasted HPS on this forum but that was for willful deception and intentional bad faith, not for something as unproven and inconclusive as this.

I would have made an agreement to have the part tested at a certified/independent material testing lab and wait for the results before even posting anything. I'm sure VRP would be willing to pay for the lab tests if the product was faulty.

psuball1

I have owned nearly thirty cars and modded half of them. I have never seen as much drama in a forum or whatever else than I have in this forum.

PLAIN SILLY!!!

ChicagoX

Victor, you misunderstand. I'm not upset, merely disappointed that it took three weeks for any response, leading to me missing my own event.

Well, that, and your employees' conspiracy theories.

We can play "what-ifs" forever, but I'm concentrating on how it was handled after it became a problem.

Pics of the other pulley to follow.

jangy

If all you cared about was making your event, then why did you not just throw the ASP on there and go? I'm confused on how VRP kept you from your event.

I agree to concentrate on how it was handled AFTER the fact.

Again, since you say: " My bolt was not saved, as I was not interested in doing a forensic analysis on this at the time. I wanted that pulley off my car and the ASP on as quickly as possible, since my track rental was imminent. As it ended up, my car missed the event I organized.", then why not just buy the ASP and GO??

What did you want VRP to have done? Why did it take your involvement before something moved? What have LET and CPT done that is so amazing? Did they refund your money? Did they get you to your event? Did they source you an ASP? What did they tell you during that three weeks?

I got bashed earlier on for having some faith that a pulley manufacturer would use an appropriate raw material. How does the same rationale not apply to simple blind faith in the installer's "skillz"?

The black goonk MUST be explained. You may want to ignore it, but at least give an explanation. Are you saying that it was NOT there when VRP got the part or not?

Now that you have dragged the cat out, at least be honest and follow it through.