Grr! So we finally got it on last night and everything, rigged up the radiator to fit. Take it for a cruise and hear a wierd sound like metal on metal, look all over the car and cant find anything. Well today I go outside to prepare my car for the weekend and this is what I discover







The crank pulley is hitting the damn traction bar. Im running a stock LS pulley on my b20. What do I do now...

 

anyone?

 

I have no idea? I have a Innovative Crossmember with urathane bushings and the stock "rods" and have no clearance issues...

What mounts are you using?

Was the car wrecked before?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dc4iNtEgRa &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

What mounts are you using?

Was the car wrecked before?

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x2.

If you're rocking those ebay mounts , they suck. I used a set for two days before I bought my innovative a few years ago.




Modified by .Manny. at 5:06 PM 6/20/2008

 

Innovative Cross Members suck ***! I just took one off after breaking one a few days earlier. Yes I went through 2 of them before I bought this one for a hell of a price. I hated how low the innovative one sits.

Im running HCP mounts. Im going to try and shave the crank pulley down some just enough to allow clearance. Gotta get it fixed by sunday since this is my daily driver and i have to work on monday

 

Your full race bar is not the problem...Its either mounts, or you are too low.

Probably too low.

 

I ran into a similar issue using HCP mounts and a Jim Fab crossmember, I switched to Hasport and it fixed the problem. I was running a b16 so I can see where you might run into problems.

Good Luck

 

You know I was wondering if it had anything to do with my car sitting low but I wasnt sure

 

were they the old school HCP mounts?

 

Umm they might be but i dont see why they would the issue when I have never had any issue at all with the way my motor sits in my car.

How would the car being too low effect the traction bars out of curiousity, cause that could be the culprit

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by guy_from_nerk &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Umm they might be but i dont see why they would the issue when I have never had any issue at all with the way my motor sits in my car.

How would the car being too low effect the traction bars out of curiousity, cause that could be the culprit</TD></TR></TABLE>

Dude, the radius rod is connected directly to your LCA...It is part of the suspension, the motor is bolted directly to the body/frame of the car....

The suspension gets closer to the body/frame the lower you go...

The lower you go, the closer to the raius rod the pulley is.....

 

i had the same issue with my ETD bar. to solve my problem i swapped to the N1 ctr pulley. I've ran it for a year now with no issues with the bar or the pulley. people who say the N1 pulley destroys bearings obviously have no first hand experience with them on their car. so order the pulley and it'll solve your problems.

 

Same with the mounts, if the mounts makes the engine sit lower in the engine bay, its gonna get closer to the radius arms. Good thing u didnt go over a big bump with that. Wouldnt have been pretty.

Janos

 

Just run a single belt light weight pulley.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 143MYVTECEF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i had the same issue with my ETD bar. to solve my problem i swapped to the N1 ctr pulley. I've ran it for a year now with no issues with the bar or the pulley. people who say the N1 pulley destroys bearings obviously have no first hand experience with them on their car. so order the pulley and it'll solve your problems.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Just because your engine hasn't taken a dump yet, doesn't mean it can't or that someone else's wont. besides, Physics says you are wrong.

to illustrate, you will need a metal rod or pipe and a hammer. if you hit the metal rod with the hammer, it will ring, which is a consequence of the natural resonance of the metal rod, known as the frequency of free vibration. energy was exerted on the rod via the hammer blow, and some of the energy was dissipated via this vibration that happens to produce sound. if you then grab the metal rod, it will stop vibrating.

This is analogous to a combustion event in your engine. When the fuel explodes, it exerts a tremendous force on the crank, also imparting a slight vibration on the crank, because the crank also has a frequency of free vibration. At certain RPMs, the energy causing the vibration will be a certain resonant frequency consistent with this frequency of free vibration, and harmonic resonance is the result. These harmonics can be dampened by the rubber band in a normal crank pulley, or by using a Fluiddamper style crank pulley. The CTR n1 pulley has no harmonic dampening quality at all. The best that can be said for it is that it will change the harmonic of the rotating assembly to another value.

The moral of the story is that if you value the longevity of your engine, it is best to use some sort of harmonic dampener to dampen the vibration imparted on the crank. You can run without one, and your engine may last years. You may never even see a failure related to the dampener, but engine harmonics are real. They will still be there, causing fatigue of the metal in the crank and on the engine bearings.

I will also save you the lecture on over-lowering your car without compensating for the reduced role center imparted in the suspension geometry. to be fair, this isn't something you can buy off-the-shelf parts to fix in the ef, atleast that i am aware of. the solution in this case then would be to raise your car back up to a height where the instant center is at least above the plain of the lower control arm.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sanimalp &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Just because your engine hasn't taken a dump yet, doesn't mean it can't or that someone else's wont. besides, Physics says you are wrong.
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wow you must be an engineering genius to drop some knowledge like that!!! but like i said in my previous post im sure you have no first hand experience with this pulley and are just vomiting out some physics jargon to get your rocks off and get an e-high five. If the op purchases this pulley for less than 70 dollars, he will solve his problem and for go having to purchase 250-300 dollar bling mounts.

that's my .02 for the op.

 

Well, he's right. There's people out there that have good luck with a setup that have a high chance of failure.
I've only heard of stories of the N1 pulley; but when you look at what motor it came with, it makes sense. I won't get into that, because that's for another thread. That issue exists with D-series motors too(D15 and aftermarket pulleys on D16s). A few people are running them with no problems while others have issues. It's a risk. Just because it works for you, doesn't mean it'll work for others.

Now, it looks like the alternator pulley is hitting the arm; is the N1 pulley a smaller diameter? Also, if he installs the N1 pulley and his oil pump does blow, he'd be out even more than the cost of mounts.

IMO, I say just swap out the mounts or find a way to raise the motor(maybe the rubber is worn and causing the mount to sag?). If that doesn't work, then go for the pulley.

 

the 91 pully is smaller than the stock pully. and it uses (i think) a 93 acura vigor p/s belt. i cant remember the year, but it is definately smaller. i had this problem with my ls, with stock crank pully, and stock crossmember. but i also had ebay mounts. the pully stopped it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 143MYVTECEF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> but like i said in my previous post im sure you have no first hand experience with this pulley and are just vomiting out some physics jargon to get your rocks off and get an e-high five. If the op purchases this pulley for less than 70 dollars, he will solve his problem and for go having to purchase 250-300 dollar bling mounts.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You are right, I have NO experience with this pulley, because I am not dumb enough to run one. I don't think you understand that making a single observation is not sufficient to prove something won't happen.

Sure, the pulley may be $70 and will solve his problem in the short term, but like someone mentioned, if he destroys a crank bearing or breaks an oil pump, its gonna be a lot more money than if he did it right the first time.

As k2e2vin said, it is simply a matter of risk. the op now has both sides of the story.. so he can chose if the risk of running the N1 pulley is tolerable for the application.

 

Yeah I posted on a local honda site which Dave Blundell frequents alot and he said the CTR is a bad idea. I think im giong to take the stock crank pulley to a machine shop and have them cut off the a/c and p/s section. I am using new mounts for the 3rd time now, they are not worn or busted and the motor does not sag. If anything it sits higher then my buddies b16 powered crx which is using innovative mounts.

 

x2 on the shaved factory pulley. It keeps your harmonic balancer and stops the problem of the pulley clearance issue. I had the same problem with my GSR ef hatch. The shaved down pulley is the only way for me to do a timing belt with the motor mounts not having to be loosened up to clear the crank pulley off the crank.

 

i have the same prob on my car and i have the hasport mounts. im raising mine up to put my set of M&h slicks on it but I've been looking around and i think the b16 crank pully is smaller

 

To solve this issue simple wise and still have full function of the TBS simply mount the heim under the LCA instead of on top.

 

Can you do that?

 

I've witnessed the mounting the radius arm under the lca with no ill affects. that's a viable option. But honestly Honda didn't R&D a pulley to fail on there factory sponsored ctr viechle. the crank harmonics on a Honda motor are nill. if this was lopy race motor or a v8 then the harmonic balancer would play an integral role of bearing and pump survival. but this seems to be a street driven b20. the n1 pulley will work. modifying a stock pulley is up to you. Just make sure the modified pulley is rebalanced or the lack of a harmonic balancer will be the last of your worries.