wstar's Journal

wstar

Just got done installing the underdrive pulley from Stillen. Crankshaft bolt was a bitch to get loose, but it seems that's always the case on every car.

Service manual references a tool to hold the starter gear teeth in place while you're loosening and tightening the crankshaft bolt (see Svc Manual, Section EM, top of pg 53), whereas Stillen's instructions go with the standard "remove starter and use a prybar on the teeth there". With two people on a lift, I think the Stillen thing would've worked better, but alone crawling under the car trying to work both ends of things, I really wish I had that stupid little tool. It's basically just a triangular piece of metal with two bolt-holes, I imagine it can be ordered cheap from Nissan, or just fabbed with a grinder and a piece of steel. Just FYI for anyone else doing a self-install on this, it might be worth it to look into that.

Driving impressions:

Regarding the now-slowed accessory pulleys: I didn't notice anything different really with the steering or the AC, at least on a short night drive. The volt gauge moves a bit more, especially idling after startup (flicking the throttle moves it up a bit), so you can kinda tell the change in the alternator, but it's still staying over the 14 mark, I don't think it's going to be an issue.

I wasn't expecting to feel much difference driving, given that pulleys aren't generally a big power gain. However, my butt dyno was pleasantly surprised at the results of this mod. We'll have to see on a real dyno later if there are any actual HP gains, but I'm guessing at least a small bump there. What I really noticed though is that the car is just more responsive to throttle input now. Shifts (7AT in my car, remember) are a bit snappier, as the rpm changes (up and down) for shifts are even faster than they were before. You can really feel the difference when you sit around 4k in a given gear and ride the throttle close to even, alternating between accel and engine braking. The transition between those two states is faster and more responsive. Overall I'm really impressed with the change in the car's character from such a simple mod. I don't know what else to say besides re-iterating "more responsive" again

No pics of the car, it's not like a pulley is that exciting looking anyways, but here's a couple of install-related pics.

The pullers I had in my garage were all too long and bulky for the tiny cramped space you're working with on our crank pulley. I went by O'Reilly (generic auto parts place, like AutoZone, etc) and picked up one that worked well enough. It's a tiny cheap "gear puller" that happens to be small enough. I couldn't quite get both legs through the pulley at the same time (it's really cramped), so I took a bit of length off of one of the feet with a dremel cutting wheel (less than 1/4" I think). This is what you're looking for if you want to try to find it at a local place (and you can see my edit to one of the feet too):



Also, the belt tensioner on our car is rather tense. I was using a cheapo 3/8" socket wrench to hold mine open during the belt re-install. It couldn't take the torque, so the square drive got twisted. Poor little wrench:

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