Stillen pulley review
 

had the Stillen pulley installed to specs at a local dealership, right after the install found that the engine revs so freely and less lag and there some gains noticed right away. that was about 3 weeks ago.
Right now car sounds harsh in idling, and when I reverse. When driving above 4k rpm, before I was able to hear the exhaust tone more but now its more of the engine, its like when you're in the higher rpm range in first gear. Are others experiencing the same thing?

You do know if you make adjustments to the engine (like intake, exhaust, headers, etc), even pullies, you definitely need to get a "tune", right?

Pulley tune? Hardly worthwhile...

^^^ yeah, I really don't think the accessories need to be tuned for new pulleys. I also think that "engine revs so freely and less lag" are placebo effects. Pulleys make very marginal differences.

:iagree:

You don't need a tune for the pulley.

You probably picked up 3-5 whp.

Sometimes you'll hear noises that have actually always been there. . .

You probably have something that is coming loose and is unrelated to the pulley - it may be a side effect of mechanics touching your car. My Stillen UD pulley causes A/C drain to be less noticeable. I don't have robo-rev matching, but rev-matching on downshifts is perfect now due to the more responsive throttle. Tune generally adjusts engine for different airflow and fuel mix so if you've got those AND this definitely get a tune, but on its own this is a true bolt-on with instant benefits.

All the pulley does is reduce parasitic losses -- the pulley does nothing that requires a tune.

It's like trying to get a tune for a lighter set of wheels or tires... you may benefit from a tune, but the effect of the pulley is irrelevant to that.

Heyy, i've got a question. my stillen pulley just arrived and can i use oem belts?

maybe and I did have it checked out but nothing could be found. Its how the car sounds now when its in the mid range rpm that concerns me, getting the pulley removed. From what I gather, this is because of damper missing in the pulley like the stock. There is some gain made with this mod but adding a damper will help.

However, no tune needed.

If you got the Lightweight one, you can use an OEM-sized belt (although the Gates K070810 belt that Stillen recommends is a good high-quality replacement). If you got the Underdrive pulley, you need a shorter belt. Again Stillen recommends a good Gates belt for that (K070776), and you can order the same Gates belts through local auto parts stores too usually (e.g. NAPA, Autozone, whatever).

:tup: I bought the lightweight ones and not the Underdrive. so i guess i'll just use the oem's gates belt for the time being and later add on the stillen's gates belts as im tired of waiting for the parts to arrive! 2 weeks to get them shipped from US to Brunei LOL

i thought the issue revolved around the fact you are messing with the harmonic balance of the engine by lightening the pulley..... thus the rough idle and whatnot.

That's a whole other argument, which has been debated at length elsewhere on this and every other car forum on the planet, largely inconclusively. Given the evidence at hand for our cars, I'd say whether dropping one in is a good idea really depends on your situation. As a general guideline: if you have plans to go Forced Induction it's probably best to not mess with the pulley (SC pulley size needs adjusting, and SC/TC both are adding a lot of stress and doubt to the harmonics arguments, and at that power range the benefits get even more marginal), and if you want your mods to be easily removable it's probably best to not mess with the pulley either (the Al ones slowly weld onto the crankshaft). Enough of them have been (correctly installed) on NA engines for plenty of hard miles without incident though. If they were causing any serious mechanical balancing issues, we'd have seen destroyed crankshaft bearings by now.