Interesting views on AMS

[Arran]

Was researching their pulley kits as i keep being tempted by these especially when my lightweight flywhell goes in and ive stumbled across these articles and ive read alot into them, I know you only hear bad stuff on the net but surely theres a small cause for concern there, especially with the pulleys being a vital part of the engine.

 

http://hooniverse.co...iness-as-usual/

 

http://ams-pirates.com/

 

http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticles/articletype/articleview/articleid/1094/article.aspx

 

There are many more topics on the web aswell

 

What do you guys think? I know some are running the pulleys with no problems and a few traders have dealt with them.

 

Could be what people are saying that some companies/people are trying to ruin their reputation but you can never be sure

 

Its thrown a spanner in the works for me thats for sure

Edited October 22, 2013 by Arran

[Dblock]

I have researched the pulleys before fitting them. People will tell you that the pulley is a harmonic damper but that's false. I fitted thr pulley and the old pulley is solid cast metal no runner or damping. V6's have stout and short cranks which are internally balanced. A fluid dampr is a harmonic damper. The oem isn't.

 

I have fitted it to my own car and I wouldn't if it would cause harm.

[Daryl]

Iv had the AMS puley's fitted for a couple of years now, and had no problems with them at all. The only slight thing with them, is that being ally, on a cold day, your belts squeak abit for a few minutes while the engine gets some heat. As soon as the car is up to temp, the noise stops. you can keep adjusting the belt, but thats abit of a pain, and if you keep putting tension on the belt, they will just stretch and possibly break. Worth fitting by the way, I have a LW flywheel and the pulley's and together they really help the engine rev.

[Arran]

Yeah ive read alot into the harmonic damper business and now this with ams, I still want to fit a set just wary now as it would just be my luck that id have problems

 

How much difference would you say its made daryl? Did you fit them together or separately so you could feel the difference each made

[Tarmac@TarmacSportz]

 

It is interesting reading, we had an issue with some coilovers a few years ago, to be fair they said they would take them back but I never got them back from the customer to return so we worked something out between us to compensate.

 

The pulleys are decent but there wasn't many more parts to choose from, plus they messed me about on the last order so that will be the last order.

 

 

 

 

[Arran]

So if the rumours are correct who's pullies would they be copying? assuming they haven't designed their own even though they look great in photos

 

shame its come but I do do alot of research before I buy anything sometimes it pays

[Dblock]

Iv had the AMS puley's fitted for a couple of years now, and had no problems with them at all. The only slight thing with them, is that being ally, on a cold day, your belts squeak abit for a few minutes while the engine gets some heat. As soon as the car is up to temp, the noise stops. you can keep adjusting the belt, but thats abit of a pain, and if you keep putting tension on the belt, they will just stretch and possibly break. Worth fitting by the way, I have a LW flywheel and the pulley's and together they really help the engine rev.

 

Never had that problem tbh. Did you replace the nut on tensioner?

[Tricky-Ricky]

A lot of engines are designed to have external vibration damping, the reason for this is because during the firing of each individual cylinder torque stress is imparted into the crankshaft which makes it deflect setting up vibrations,

At certain RPM this vibration can set up a resonance which amplifies the stress to a point beyond what the crankshaft can stand, which in extreme cases can cause crankshaft failure.

If it has a harmonic crank pulley as std then if you fit a solid undamped item you run the risk of this happening, maybe not in a few thousand miles but its eventually likely to fail, especially if the engine is tuned or used hard, you pay your money you take your chance.

[Arran]

Maybe one of the traders could clarify once and for all if our engines are externally balanced as well

[Dblock]

A lot of engines are designed to have external vibration damping, the reason for this is because during the firing of each individual cylinder torque stress is imparted into the crankshaft which makes it deflect setting up vibrations,

At certain RPM this vibration can set up a resonance which amplifies the stress to a point beyond what the crankshaft can stand, which in extreme cases can cause crankshaft failure.

If it has a harmonic crank pulley as std then if you fit a solid undamped item you run the risk of this happening, maybe not in a few thousand miles but its eventually likely to fail, especially if the engine is tuned or used hard, you pay your money you take your chance.

 

True but have you seem the oem pulley. It's 100% not damped. If it was if agree to replace it with a damped one.

[Tricky-Ricky]

It may not look like it at first glance, but I think it will be, I really cant think of any modern engines (1990 on) that dont have a harmonic balancer.

[Tarmac@TarmacSportz]

 

I don't know on whether this item is a copy of another design or not tbh.

 

There are not that many standard pulleys out there, Stillen do one. If you look at undersized pulleys then there are shed loads of the same design but a lot of different brands. Re-branding and copying designs is common practise and by no means are AMS the only ones that do it.

[KyleR]

Are the AMS ones undersized or OEM? Maybe they do both?

[Tricky-Ricky]

ATI do an expensive harmonic damped aftermarket crank pulley, so do Boost logic, all the pattern part pulleys are harmonic damped based on the std part, don't quite see the point of running an undersized pulley, why over speed the alternator, power steering pump and air con pump.

[Arran]

The ams are oem size but lightweight I believe stillen are under driven

[rtbiscuit]

I have a larger supercharger pulley fitted, there were too available I went with the one that was the same as the oem, and not the one that was welded. Both work, but the talk was that the welded one would shorten the engine life span.

[Dblock]

ATI do an expensive harmonic damped aftermarket crank pulley, so do Boost logic, all the pattern part pulleys are harmonic damped based on the std part, don't quite see the point of running an undersized pulley, why over speed the alternator, power steering pump and air con pump.

 

I'm not questioning your wrong but do you have any proof that is is harmonic damped?

[Dblock]

It may not look like it at first glance, but I think it will be, I really cant think of any modern engines (1990 on) that dont have a harmonic balancer.

 

Also don't v6's have balance shafts too? I will try to find that post that made alot of sence to me when choosing to fit the AMS pulley.

[evilscorp]

If I can be ass'd I will look out my old oem one which is in the garage. I believe it has a rubber ring somewhere on it. I have the AMS lightweight ones, no problems so far (16000+miles) but will be buying the Fluidampr pulley because it is slightly larger and will spin my supercharger faster and is dampened, ....... just in case, when the power becomes a bit too much

[Tricky-Ricky]

Here is a pattern VQ35DE crankshaft pulley, if you look you can see where its decoupled/damped,

http://reindeerparts.de/en/autoteile/NDS-VQ23-CRANKSHAFT-PULLEY-ENGINE-VQ23DE-VQ35DE-OEM-to-compare-12303-8J101Model-NISSAN-MURANO-Z50-2002-2007.html

The DE engine dose not use any balancer shafts, the later VHR may but I don't think so.

[Dblock]

Here is a pattern VQ35DE crankshaft pulley, if you look you can see where its decoupled/damped,

http://reindeerparts...-2002-2007.html

The DE engine dose not use any balancer shafts, the later VHR may but I don't think so.

 

I'm sorry what am I looking for? where is it damped?

[Mark@Abbey m/s]

Let me look into the discussion and come back with some information.

 

 

Mark

[Tricky-Ricky]

Here is a pattern VQ35DE crankshaft pulley, if you look you can see where its decoupled/damped,

http://reindeerparts...-2002-2007.html

The DE engine dose not use any balancer shafts, the later VHR may but I don't think so.

 

I'm sorry what am I looking for? where is it damped?

 

If you look carefully at the junction of the two diameter pulleys its decoupled by a thin rubber insert.

[Daryl]

Iv had the AMS puley's fitted for a couple of years now, and had no problems with them at all. The only slight thing with them, is that being ally, on a cold day, your belts squeak abit for a few minutes while the engine gets some heat. As soon as the car is up to temp, the noise stops. you can keep adjusting the belt, but thats abit of a pain, and if you keep putting tension on the belt, they will just stretch and possibly break. Worth fitting by the way, I have a LW flywheel and the pulley's and together they really help the engine rev.

 

Never had that problem tbh. Did you replace the nut on tensioner?

No idea,i think the guy who fitted them just swapped the pulley's over and reused the same nuts. I did the pulley's a few years back, and notice a small difference, mainly when going from 30mph in 6th. The LW flywheel was done this year. If you feel the weight of the standard pulley's compared to the LW ones,then you will see where the gain is.

[Dblock]

Here is a pattern VQ35DE crankshaft pulley, if you look you can see where its decoupled/damped,

http://reindeerparts...-2002-2007.html

The DE engine dose not use any balancer shafts, the later VHR may but I don't think so.

 

I'm sorry what am I looking for? where is it damped?

 

If you look carefully at the junction of the two diameter pulleys its decoupled by a thin rubber insert.

 

I'm 95% sure my oem one didn't have that and it was solid.