Hi all:
Just mulling this "Underdrive Pulley" issue over again, and put with other
things being tossed around the list, I'm unsure if you'd really get any real
gains of power with them. Follow me a second here:
People are running "Straight Water" in their cooling systems for maximum
cooling of the engine, yet if you "underdrive" (aka, turn more slowly) the
water pump, you'll be offsetting any possible gains (by running less water
thru the system) 100% water may have given you and perhaps making overheating
a possibility.
These pulley's turn an alternator so slowly that it borders on not being
able to charge the battery. If this is true, then why turn the alternator at
all and just run your races with the alternator totally out of the loop?
(combine that with the A/C out of the loop and you have 2 devices less
running) (install a second battery if the power drain is too much for 1 batt
etc. etc.)
Another thing, why 5 pulleys? Unless you need to specifically lower each
devices RPM's by different rates (a true fine tuning of rpm speed would
require this) you could just reduce the diameter of the crankshaft pulley and
it would slow the entire belt down, and the motor could more easilly turn the
belt over.
Without seeing some concrete numbers on how much HP this gives back to the
motor, this all seems like "snake oil" to me. Every thing that gains by
adjusting the size of the pulley seems to lose something somewhere else. On
the list of things that manufacturers tend to "over build" or "do
ineffieciently", I would think these pulleys would be down at the bottom of
the list. The equipment needs to operate at certain rpms and a trained monkey
could figure out the ratios to meet those speeds. Just some "bah-humbug"
pessimism on this topic.
Shaun
Tustin, CA
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