Hey Everyone,
I was wondering what is the best aftermarket supercharger pulley out there? Is there any brand better than another. I have been looking at Paramount Performance, Mina, and Eurotoys. Does anyone have experience with any of these setups? Which one would be the best? Should i go both upper and lower supercharger pulleys? Would anyone think about getting a tune, or would that put too much strain on the engine? What about the pulley does that put a lot of stress on the engine? Any other things i would need to do if i wanted to get a new pulley.
Thanks,
-Mike

 

There is much written about pulleys, there is a lot to be found, not much I can add.

However there is something where you need to watch out for as I have recently seen a lower pulley from a re-seller in the UK, where the design leaves some major question marks imo.

The lower pulley also serves as a harmonic balancer, which is why there is a rubber ring between ring for the accessory belt and main part of the pulley. The flaw in the unit I saw was that they fixed the supercharger ring both to the main pulley and accessory ring, meaning that it can’t function well anymore as harmonic damper, which isn’t good for you engine.

So if selecting a lower pulley, it’s better to check with the seller what design they use, and avoid the types as mentioned.

 

Wise words from our resident supercharging expert, I'll add another, if going with either upper and lower you're putting an added strain on your coolant circuit.

It pays to make sure it's in top condition - there are 2 valley pipes under the S/C, renew these along with a pulley.

You'll also need a slightly smaller belt and possibly an updated idler/tensioner from Jaguar or good Jag parts specialists to keep from belt slip.

If you choose an upper pulley - use only stainless steel. A quality panel filter like K&N.

 

I bought mine from Powerhouse Automotive in England. Excellent Stainless Steel quality and very good service. I would recommend them. I also added a 6 -1/2 quart reservoir to the SC cooling circuit to help with the additional heat load.

If you are going to use an upper pulley use the smallest one (3#) even though you will need to modify the snout

 

I looked on ebay, and it looks like the one I had seen, so better check with them. The SC ring is centered on the main part of the pulley (and this is tight), and then bolted to the outer ring (which you can see in the pictures), so fixing it which is the bad part.

 

My pulley from them is the upper pulley. It is 1 piece.

 

Thought you were speaking about the lower one obviously, so far there are no upper harmonic dampers ;-)

 

Since i think i am going with the lower pulley sometime in the next few months, since i want more of gain then 1.5 pounds of boost. Since this lower pulley would give me about 16-16.5 pounds of boost. So that would be a gain of 4.5 pounds of boost. Also you said something about the harmonic balancer for the lower supercharger pulley, but the place actually takes out your current pulley and modify the Jaguar pulley and also says "The factory crank pulley/balancer has the isolating material at the rear of the pulley. The rear part of the pulley is not modified, but once the pulley is machined it is re-balanced." Does this seem legit? Also how much do factory supercharger pulleys cost?
Thanks,
Mike

 

On the 4.0 cars, the lower crank pulley has 2 rings, the SC and accessory one, and only the latter is separated with a rubber damper, making it a harmonic balancer. Look at the attached picture they show on ebay, you can clearly see how the ring is sperated with a black rubber.

The SC ring is one part of the pulley unit itself (not separated with rubber, except for the 4.2 cars where it is), and is NOT fixed to the accessory ring.

As said, the one I saw the SC ring was centered (more or less fixed) to the main pulley, nothing wrong with that as long as they would leave it at that.

Problem is they use also 4 bolts to fix it to the accessory ring, making everything rigid, and that’s NOT good. Do a google on harmonic balancers, there is lots written about it.

 

You can always upgrade to the 4.2 lower pulley and front covers.

 

How does this one look?

 

Can't tell from the picture, but the 4 bolts seem to be closer to the centre contrary the one from PH, so I would ask ET to be sure.

 

Wait, what am I supposed to ask?

 

I have just fitted new lower and upper pulleys to my MY2000 4.0 litre XJR. The kit was supplied by PowerHouse and I fitted an upgraded supercharger radiator and water pump at the same time. The bottom puley gives 16% extra and the top one is a 6% gain (apparently!).

The installation took longer than I had expected. Perhaps I should have got Powerhouse to fit it as they are very experienced at doing these modifications! To be fair to "my" mechanic it was the first time that he had done this on a Jaguar V8. Also, thankfully, he is very pedantic that everything should be done carefully without rushing.

The increased low down throttle response and low down power is very noticeable. A definite improvement as I found the stock engine lacking in low down throttle response. Once it got going it pulled like a train, but the power wasn't immediate. The modified engine is much better in this regard.

One thing that I hadn't thought about is the increased supercharger whine. You definitely hear it much more after changing the pulleys, but it isn't really intrusive.

I chose to change both pulleys, which ended up costing much more than if I had just changed the lower pulley. I am not entirely certain how much extra gain I got from doing the top one as well (in "real life" driving terms as opposed to on paper). With hindsight, for everyday use, simply changing the bottom one (for a 16% increase) would probably have been sufficient. If I had only changed the bottom one then I wouldn't have had to change the supercharger radiator and pump, so not only would the parts have cost a lot less but the labour charges would have been much less too. I suspect that the law of diminishing returns came heavily into play when I chose to change the upper one as well!

Powerhouse highly recommend changing the supercharger oil when the pulleys are changed. Sounds sensible to me so I also did that.

Lawson Smith at Powerhouse was very helpful throughout and I can definitely recommend them to anyone thinking of making this modification.

 

I have the Powerhouse lower pulley too. The difference is really noticeable in both acceleration and whine. I have uploaded a couple of videos where you can hear the whine quite nicely.

jkoukku1's channel - YouTube

Interestingly the intercoolers were barely warm after 6-7 laps of hard driving in the track. It was only after sitting in the pits for about 10 minutes when they started getting hot. And they cooled down again on the track.

 

The other nice thing about the Powerhouse steel pulley is the lack of belt squeal. Grinding down the supercharger nose was that hard or time consuming and it slipped right on after I had heated it up. There are nice to deal with too, with very quick replies to questions. I would really recomend the smallest pulley they offer instead of the larger one that doesn't require grinding. It is a very noticable difference and you'll be very happy with the results.

G

 

I debated about the size of the upper pulley, but felt (rightly or wrongly!) that the grinding of the nose shaft on the supercharger was just one step too far. I have changed the bottom one for the 16% increase and the top one for the 6% increase, and have changed the inter-cooler radiator and pump. I am very happy with the result! I can't imagine that the other top pulley would have been very noticeable (over and above what I have done), but who knows!?

 

I meant "It wasn't that hard or time consuming." Opps...

 

I had a knock sensor fail on my 2000 XKR so I needed to remove the supercharger to replace it. I purchased the 3lb boost upper pulley from powerhouse and with the supercharger off the job of machining the nose was not too bad. The attached photo shows all the tools I used to do the job. I cut a wood piece with a couple holes to used as a guide to rotate the die grinder around the shaft. This really helped keep the cut even. I finished up with a hand file and used the sanding belt and drill to get the final finish. I did not have an Oxy-acetylene torch so I gave it a try with Map gas and a $20 torch. I soaked the supercharger shaft in dry ice for 30 min and the pulley simply slipped on after heating. I then cooled it with some water to keep the heat from the bearings.

The change in performance is significant and the gaterback belt has shown no signs of slipping.

Brent in Big D.

 

I used Map gas to heat mine as also but without any dry ice on the snout. It slipped right on. The heating did discolor the pulley and I see that yours discolored the same way that mine did.

How long did it take you to grind the snout?