Alright folks...
If you are a DIY kind of person and decide to tackle this little and simple looking project here is some information/advice.
1. If you do not know how to change your own brakes pads/rotors this job is NOT for you should and you need to pay a shop to do it. The tune is easy enough but the pulley extraction and replacement is no walk in the park (i'll explain later)
2. Do not go watching videos on youtube and assume anything. The 3 minute video on the pulley extraction and replacement is just bull... eventhough I enjoyed the soundtrack quite a bit.
3. VelocityAP folks are as good as you have read… Stuart answers his phone when you call him and really tries to be a solution to your issues. The issue is that even when doing things step by step and according to the instructions hiccups do happen. This ECU tuning process may not be 100% smooth and straight foward. The emailed file from VelocityAP was corrupt and it took a couple of tries to work after some back-and-forth emails/phone calls. (24 hrs)
4. Now the fun part now for those of you that are saying "I got this". The stock SC pulley is @66mm in diameter and the smaller one is @62mm just FYI. Now… the inner diameter of the back of the stock pulley is @ 55.25mm and the smaller pulley either 51.2 or 52.2mm (depending on who you buy it from). The snout on the SC is casting aluminum and is roughly 52mm in diameter. The new smaller pulley, as well as the stock one needs to clear the snout of the SC as it slides in over the shaft of the SC. Having said that, the shaft of the SC is 16.84mm in diameter and the inner diameter of both the stock and smaller pulleys are roughly 16.55mm. Do you see the challenges here? You need to burr the snout and heat up the pulley to x amount of degrees to open up the 0.25 mm or so in order to slide over the shaft of the SC. In my case it measured 850 degrees F. I wrapped the pulley with header wrap and used some stainless wire to hold it. The other challenge and the one that got me pissed off is the burring of the snout of the SC. The problem with this is that you do not know how much unless you have a template, and you don't. I ended up buying 2 pulleys and making the shaft hole bigger with a dremmel tool so I could slide it in until it spun freely over the SC snout. I also made sure that the other pulley (from VelocityAP) was larger. ( by 1 full mm! ) Back to the heating of the pulley… heating in an oven at 400 degrees or so did not increase the diameter the necessary, and using a propane torch did. How do I know that you may be asking, I measured it with my high techy caliper that is how.
5. The phone calls on the Monday after the debacle to a couple of places all mention the burring of the SC snout. This is what pissed me off, no one seemed to mention this to me up to this point. Kind of important stuff ! ! !
So all in all it took me a week to get this issue resolved, and looking at my 3600 pound, very expensive paper weight for a week did not go well with the wife…
The car does haul some *** now though. 2 at the most to be exact!
Swapping the lower crank pulley is really the way to go on both the V6 and V8. So much easier to bolt off and back on. No snout or pulley grinding needed.
You can't go significantly smaller on the V6 upper SC pulley anyway (2.5%) and the lower pulley offers 11% speed increase vs the upper at 7% on the V8.
Glad you got it all sorted in the end, and it sounds like the VelocityAP pulley we sent you fit and solved the problem?
I know that we had a couple of instances over a year ago where the snout didn't clear the internal of the pulley well enough, which is why we changed the machining to increase the clearance, and has been perfect since then.
Sorry...
Did not even cross my mind. Things were not going well and really there was not much to picture there. If you are interested in doing it let me know though.
First I bought the pulley removal tool for the Mini cooper. its a collar that you screw over the stock pulley, then using a $ 20 pulley removal tool (rent one at autozone) which screws on to the collar of the removal tool. Are you planning on doing this?
I am thinking about it. My brother is a mechanic (GM, though) and has the tools...I am worried about putting the new pulley on. I heard it is a pain....and then I read your write up. Thanks by the way!
First I bought the pulley removal tool for the Mini cooper. its a collar that you screw over the stock pulley, then using a $ 20 pulley removal tool (rent one at autozone) which screws on to the collar of the removal tool. Are you planning on doing this?
To use this tool, you'll still need to heat the bejebus out of the upper pulley to get it off.
both by hand with a #60 grit sandpaper and a dremmel tool. Be careful not to hit the hose next to the snout. You need a template in order to know for sure how much to take off.
For my XFR I just tossed the new pulley into a toaster oven outside next to me while I cut my old pulley off super carefully ( pulley tools I found wouldn't fit in this area). I then kept ice on the shaft /snout until the pulley i the toaster was at its highest temp. I then used a glove and slipped it onto the snout quickly and lined it up where it needed to be and the poured colder water on it to flash it into place.
Was my way the best way, maybe or maybe not but I never had any problems with any slipping or the dealer ever noticing it. I was even able to put that tiny plastic cap back over the front of the pulley/snout to look like stock still.
I sure wish Jag used a keyway to mount them or other locking method as the press on type is never fun.
I have contacted two speed shops around here to see if they would do the pulley swap..if it was around $100, I was just going to have them do it. Both places said they couldn't do it....what the heck?
I have a message for the Jaguar dealership to see if they would swap them, it's out of warranty and obviously I told them I would take full responsibility.
I will probably end up doing it myself. Didn't think it would be this hard, just to get a quote.
