Aluminum ABY Crank & Alternator Pulleys

[jirkipi]

Greetings from Canada!

We now have crank pulleys and alternator pulleys available for the Audi ABY motor. They are both stock diameter and made from 6061 T6 Aluminum. The weight reduction we achieved is absolutely amazing.
Big thanks to David from Ireland for sending us the OEM pulleys!

Paul

paul@mapleracingcomponents.com

[Sonic]

Hi Paul,

Look awesome!

Do you have a price?

Cheers,

Andy

[jirkipi]

Thanks for your reply...

ABY Crank Pulley: $308.93 + shipping
ABY Alternator Pulley: $93.93 + shipping

I only declare about $40 when i ship to Europe, and mark the package as 'gift' or 'warranty'.
This way no VAT or Duty on your end!!!

Paul

[Sonic]

And thats canadian dollars?

[jirkipi]

Oops......sorry......yes in Canadian Dollars!

Paul

[driftin jo]

It is that weight for a reson ! It is a torsional vibration damper, if you remove the audi pully you may save on reciprocating mass but you loose the torsional vibration damper.

[Matt_D]

It is that weight for a reson ! It is a torsional vibration damper, if you remove the audi pully you may save on reciprocating mass but you loose the torsional vibration damper.

I think these are aimed at cars that have their cranks balanced during a rebuild

[Rusty]

You're looking at a 'zero balance' with these that means each piece is balanced individually rather than having the whole crank assy balanced as a whole. Based on an ABY front pulle weighing nearly 5kg these represent a great saving in weight over the stock items, with a lightened crank and flywheel you can shed nearly 10kg from the rotating mass!!! Not going to do much for the idle but who cares

[driftin jo]

I think these are aimed at cars that have their cranks balanced during a rebuild

It has nothing to do with balancing !! IT HAS TO DO WITH TORSIONAL DAMPING !

It is destined to absorb the resonant frequency of the crank , at given points in the rev range there will be potentially destructive frequencies created, if they are not absorbed /damped out by the torsional damper the resulting resonant rise will snap the crank !
When I was an apprentice we were shown many examples of this, the most interesting one for our subject is the two v8 engines on a test rig.
Two v8's were put on a test bench one with and one without a torsional damper! They were held at about 6000 rmp after 7 finites the one without the damper snapped its crank!

I have just looked to see what I could find on google on the subject and have put the links below for you to have a read of. There will be much more you can find if you have the time but I think you will get the idea.

http://www.epi-eng.com/piston_engine_technology/crankshaft_torsional_absorbers.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsional_vibration

[jirkipi]

Hey guys,

I just want to add my 2 cents.....
We have sold a lot of these pulleys to all sorts of Audi owners in Europe and I have yet to hear back from any of them about a failure or any problem whatsoever.

I have a 1999 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro with over 400000Km. on it. I put on a lightwieght crank pulley (which we made ), a stage 2 chip, Milletk exhaust, injectors from a 5L Mustang, fuel pressure regulator, intake at about 30000Km. I am still on the original motor, turbo, tansmission, differnetial, changed to a single mass flywheel, going on my 4th clutch, etc. My car is a daily driver, and driven very HARD! Proper warm up and proper cool down all the time......no problems!

You be the judge!

Paul

[jirkipi]

Hey Andy.....LOVE the avatar
I flew to 'the ring' in May of 2008 with my son and my wife. I had an 2008 Audi A3 TDI as a rental, and it was a dream come true for me. The English are MANIACS on that track!!!!!!!

You make out there often?

Paul

[S2central.net]

That weight saving is impressive, but I too was wondering about torsional vibrations...

There is a heavy rubber element in the stock crank pulley for damping these vibrations - I've always wondered if that is to smooth out vibrations for driver/passenger comfort or for reliability...

I imagine this lightweight one can only be fitted to a bottom end that has either been 'zero balanced' or as part of a special balancing request.

[driftin jo]

Hey guys,

I just want to add my 2 cents.....
We have sold a lot of these pulleys to all sorts of Audi owners in Europe and I have yet to hear back from any of them about a failure or any problem whatsoever.

I have a 1999 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro with over 400000Km. on it. I put on a lightwieght crank pulley (which we made ), a stage 2 chip, Milletk exhaust, injectors from a 5L Mustang, fuel pressure regulator, intake at about 30000Km. I am still on the original motor, turbo, tansmission, differnetial, changed to a single mass flywheel, going on my 4th clutch, etc. My car is a daily driver, and driven very HARD! Proper warm up and proper cool down all the time......no problems!

You be the judge!

Paul

So you did not read the the links i put in my post then, because if you had you would have read that this is rarely a problem for 4 cylinder engines “primarily because of their inherently higher stiffness-to-mass ratios “ so you may get away with it on your 1.8t motor.

You may also get away with in on a I5 but i for one will not be taking that chance.

Also just because you have not heard back from anyone with a broken crank does not mean it hasn't happened, chances are that if they removed the Audi pulley for a lightweight one and then sometime later the crank snapped they would not realize that this was the cause.

Like i said you may get away with it but i don't think its worth the chance.

Which ever way you look at it you are putting the crank under unnecessary stress that it would not have with the oem pulley.

[S2central.net]

@Driftin Jo - are these destructive vibrations in the crank simply a result from it being improperly balanced ?

I'd expect pretty good balance from Audi when these things left the factory, but the rubber damper probably helps smooth out any vibrations.

I think you could have problems bolting this straight onto an engine in place of heavy original pulley without any balancing work... But if the bottom is balance to run with such a light wheel then why would it have any potentially destructive forces ?

[driftin jo]

I will say this once more listen carefully "IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BALANCING"

Please read post #9 and the links that i added for ref.