hi everyone! This weekend I swapped out my stock pulley for a 17% from way. At the same time I did a DDM intake, plugs and plug wires. Before the swap the car was running well besides a VERY slight hesitation occasionally at about 3k.

Now oe that the swap is done, I’m struggling in higher gears and sometimes even in 2nd and 3rd until about 3500ish rpms. If stutters and struggles to accelerate until it winds up more. It also seems to struggle at the higher RPMS like 5700-6700. I took it out after going back to the old wires and struggled to go 100mph... I have a VERY long straight stretch of country road.

The taller gears are definitely the most noticeable.

Any thoughts on the next steps? No CEL at all not even pending :(

 

First off check simple things and make sure you dont have any plug wires crossed.

Also check to be sure you got all the plugs tightened. I just picked up a 2000 F150 that only had 130k miles for scrap prices because it ran like crap. The only thing wrong was someone forgot to tighten down 2 of the spark plugs, runs perfect now lmao.

Belt may be slipping. What size did you go down to?

Also what plugs did you use?

 

I went to a 17% pulley. I got the kit from Way motor works that came with the plugs and belt. I picked the colder plugs instead of stock, assuming that was a good move with the 17% pulley.

I did did the plugs myself. I got them hand right then did a half turn more (seemed very tight).

 

Sounds good. Something was up before that is more pronounced now that you have swapped pulleys being as you say you had a slight stutter before.

What else has been done to the car?

 

More like a single hesitation before at 3k rpms. It pulled well all the way through the RPM band in any gear.

All I’ve done is DDM intake, colder plugs and new wires (though I am back to the old wires for a test). Otherwise stock. I did all of this on Saturday, except the intake I installed on Wednesday and had good luck with it.

 

There shouldn't be any hesitation. Im guessing there is something else going on here that has been exacerbated by the new add ons.

Pull the wires off the coil one at a time and check the posts for corrosion. If so clean them with a wire brush real good and add some dielectric grease around where the rubber boot seals, not the metal contacts.

 

When was the coil last replaced? The 3k hiccup can be associated with a bad coil.

 

I am seeing a pending code for P1498 this AM but no CEL or EML... I don't know that the coil has ever been replaced, I may start with that and start looking for any air leaks... I reset the ECU last night and it is still odd this morning. I am going to look very closely at anything I may have hit or wiggled loose while doing the pulley. Considering the engine had to go up and down a little to get to everything, it could be any number of things. There was nothing going on at all like this before the swap, just that occasional very light hesitation around 2800-3k which didn't really seem like much of an issue, the previous owner said it seems like he recalls that happening occasionally since he bought it (he bought it with 11k on the odo.).

I did notice if I slowly take the pedal to the floor, it seems to accelerate pretty normally in the higher gears. If I mash it to the floor (WOT) it struggles to accelerate much at all in 5th or 6th until I'm at about 4k+ and levels out and barely pulls after 5300k.

 

I am wondering about the belt.... maybe the tensioner is more worn than I thought? Would a slipping belt cause these symptoms? When it stutters you can hear the supercharger stutter too which makes me think maybe it could be belt related? Once it winds up it seems to be mostly OK which might make sense since it has more inertia from spinning faster? Am I crazy?

 

The supercharger is rpm dependant, so it will sound funny during any stutter, but yes a slipping belt will give some of these symptoms, but not the 3k stutter.

 

That code is emissions related, but can be from a boost leak, which can present the same symptoms.

You may have a boost leak thats more prominent now with the smaller pulley.

See if any shops close can run a pressure or smoke test on your intake system.

 

Thanks for the tips! I ordered a new coil pack from Way and hope to see it soon. The 3k stutter is really nothing I’m worried about, it’s th low rpm bad stutter that causes me concern. The 3k is more of a very slight hesitation.

 

One other thing I forgot to mention is my idle is now also very rough. Before the swap it wasn’t. I wonder if I messed up a vacuum hose or something whil lifting/lowing the motor. I followed a great video how to but I may have missed something.

 

Did you reconnect all of the evap lines and plug everything in near the big mount above where you can see the supercharger pulley??

 

Have you checked that the vibration dampener has not gone to hell!check that, as it may not throw codes until it is completely gone. Then it will go into creep mode and be hard to get home!


you will not get a resolution to these codes until this is fixed (if it is bad)

 

My dampener seems OK... The rough idle is a little sporadic. Here is what I have tried:

New coil
New plug wires
Removed and re-torqued plugs and checked gap
Went back to K&N air filter (still using DDM intake but not the foam filter I bought it with)

I bought a new BPV but haven't installed it as the existing one feels like it has the same amount of resistance in the spring as the new one.

I have also checked boost and it seems to peak around 15psi according to the torque app on android with my bluetooth OBD reader.

My belt tensioner seems pretty stiff still but maybe belt slipping is something that is going on.

I checked the lines to the evap sensor (or whatever the part you should remove to get to the mounts and pulley) and looks good. I have scanned for codes several times and am getting nothing not even any pending codes and I have NO CEL.

I am thinking of taking out my injectors and testing/cleaning them. If that doesn't work, maybe I need to take her in and get robbed at a shop... I hate taking my car to the shop as I generally have no problem doing the work but I am no mechanic so I struggle to diagnose sometimes. Feels like I've thrown enough parts at it unless someone has any ideas. Maybe she just needs some bigger JCW injectors and a tune?

 

I would say the main pulley damper deteriorated combined with the questionable belt tensioner are both things you should look closely into. Jumping to a 17% pulley likely enough to trigger belt slip while it didn't before. The SC pulley is tiny in diameter and the belt system has to be in prime shape to function properly under heavy load.

 

Many times, before you get a code on a shot cam position sensor, you will notice intermittent poor idle. It is a fairly cheap part at Amazon and others. The oldly tough thing with replacing it, is the need to remove the upper passenger side motor mount, to get access to the cam position sensor. It is fairly easy to do and you need to support the engine underneath, with a jack.

Don't forget to use a quality premium fuel! (92 or better octane) It is important.

 

P1498 is an unmetered air leak, most likely the supercharger inlet duct or gasket, or the intercooler boots. Check the latter first - they are a lot cheaper and easier to fix. I can well imagine a pulley would make a leak worse.

 

crank pulley is damn near impossible to inspect by looking at it, but if it's torn inside and slipping it will move around a bit if you push on it with a pry bar and get really hot from slipping, eventually it'll totally fail

 

Quite often you can see marks where the broken vibration dampener is hitting the block around the outer ring of the vibration dampener. You have to look from underneath the car to see the marks.

 

I just have a thought on checking the crank damper/pulley. It is to use a good ole timing light. The timed strobe will freeze the rotating crank pulley a moment in time and may be you can see the change in wobble on a on-the-way-out pulley. The thing that may make this not work is if the inductive timing strobe light may not be able to keep up with the say 3500 RPM when the pulley starts to wobble. Additionally, the wobble may only occur when the belt system is heavily loaded, which will require the SC to be loaded while accelerating or on a dyno.

You will need a helper to try this.

 

Thanks for the tips! Looks like maybe I should just bite the bullet and do the crank pulley since it will fail at some point soon anyways and it may be what is causing my problem now! Stay tuned, I will post an update when I figure it out!

It is just really frustrating since I expected to have better lower RPM power with the 17% pulley and have almost no power until 3k+! Am I right by thinking I would have a good bump in the lower RPM range? Maybe lower RPM range for this car is the 3,000rpm mark. I have like honda civic with 5 grown men loaded in it, type of power below 3000RPMs!

 

Still haven't purchased the new pulley but now I am hearing (others are hearing it too, not just me!!!) a faint "beeping" like noise coming from the passenger side of the engine. It doesn't really change based on RPM or load but it is sporadic in length and frequency but almost sounded like it was coming from something far away while I was at a stop light then I heard it still while driving and then at my destination it was still making the noise. I am wondering if this is pointing at some sort of a vacuum leak. DEFINITELY on the passenger side of the engine bay near the pulleys.

I am starting to think I should have kept it stock.... It was running so well!

 

Figured it out! I went to re-route the vacuum line to use the VGS method to see if that helped... In so doing I fount the vacuum line at the intake manifold was disconected sitting right next to the nipple to plug into. I still did the reroute to see how I liked it (I do like it) but it is SOOOOO much better. Now I see why everyone loves the pulley upgrade so much. The 17% gives me all the power I was hoping for and give me lots down low! Thanks for the tips here! In the mean time I got my crank pulley swapped to a new light weight cravenspeed (I know the risk), VGS mod, new BPV, cleaned the intake with seafoam, and am back on the road feeling like a million bucks... minus my dying power steering pump! That's the project for this weekend...

Thanks for the help!