[nonovurbizniz]

Originally posted by spoogenet
I'd be curious to see the diameter measurements for both stock and AEM pulleys to see how much of a difference there really is. Most of the gain is probably in reducing the mass of the pulleys.



Caps will help this out.

My stock Accord has dimming when I press the brakes. Poor Hondas have never been known for good alternators.

By caps do you mean capacitors?... I wouldn't think that that's a very appropriate use for them as they discharge a LARGE amount of voltage all at once instead of providing what's needed when.... A REAL voltage regulator would be way more benificial.. however simply wiring your headlights and/or other "important" electronics to a relay with direct battery power would solve it all together for next to nothing.

How so? The alternator operates off the crank, wich can turn anywhere between around 750 to 6250 rpm....that's a pretty big range. And we're talking of making it probably, say, 5-10% slower. However my car doesn't even always idle at 750, sometimes a little lower, like 5-10% lower......

the alternator only starts to put out adiquit (sp) voltage at 3-4k rpm... So... when it's underdriven the idle output (as you stated already VERY close to useless) will be even worse... and it will take longer for the alternator to reach adiquite output... the only benifit would be that as the alt. on high reving cars like our own are generally beat up by being OVER driven at high rpm... however you still won't be adiquitely charging your system during normal driving... which may not be the biggest deal but I'd be pretty pissed if I got my car jumped and drove 30min home only to have it die again because I didn't sustain 5k+ the whole way home...

Also the alt. does underspin (very bad for elec. motors) at idle... it's just assumed that the majority of the time won't be spent there... with it underdriven you risk underspinning it at highway cruising rpm. which WILL cause pre-mature wear.

The only thing you're doing is giving yourself less juice on the output, putting a higher strain on the battery.....causing the charging system to kick in more, but isn't the alternator always pumping juice when the car's running?

No... as stated above the alt. doesn't put out decent voltage till around 3-4k.

Again, it spins at varying speeds.....the rate at which you change the speeds it runs is more of a problem than the actual speed, unless you're talking high speeds. How is running it a little slower bad for it? Other than its effectiveness, I mean.

The ac compressor is just that a compressor... the slower it spins when it's clutch is engaged the more likely it is for the pressure built not to be enough to continue through the workings of the compressor... you can get reversion which is not good for seals etc... I don't know how bad or how much damage it would cause but I'm sure it's negligable for the a/c.

The crank pulleys provide the biggest gain of anything (which the AEM kit doesn't replace), but usually require removal of the harmonic balancer.....I think saying definitely not ideal is an understatement, it's a good way to cause lots of problems for the poor gerbils under the hood. Unorthodox Racing makes one, but I wouldn't use it. The biggest benefit to theirs is also lighter weight, the crank pulley is heavy....

[b]civics don't have a harmonic balancer... are you sure you need to "remove" the harmonic balancer... generally they're internal and spun off the crank gear not the crank pulley. The civics have a dampened balanced crank pulley... it's weight is engineered and the dampener attempts to absorb as much excess vibration as possible... w/o it there is a rick (but by no means guarantee) of damage... not worth it again imo.

For the contradictory statements above, sorry I don't mean to argue with you I'm just curious why you say them....because I don't see why underdriving the alternator or A/C is bad for them.

No problem... I should make it clear... they're by NO means (with exception of the crank pulley) super dangerous or anything... you just risk prematurely wearing parts.