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The PP Underdrive pulley is not damped either. Both pulleys are chunks of billet aluminum, machined to particular sizes.
It has nothing to do with balance- it is about damping vibrations. The engine will not blow, the bearings will wear out faster, because of excess vibrations. 4 cylinder, non-boxer vibrations, are inherently unbalanced - the power stroke causes end to end vibrations. With out damping, or balancer shafts, the bearings wear out faster than they would in other engine layouts.
Having the whole engine/crank/pulley balanced will help a little bit, and should be done regardless, but it doesn't change the damping of the engine. Having balance shafts effectively eliminated the need for a damper on four cylinder engines, alternatively, a boxer engine doesn't need to worry about a damper either.
The fact of the matter is that it won't destroy an engine, nor am I suggesting that. It will drastically reduce the life of that engine, requiring the main bearings to be rebuilt and replaced far more often than an engine with a damper would. The stock engines are known to last upwards of 250k miles. We are talking about ruining the bearings in 20-50k. This is not a modification that should be done on a car which is regularly used. For track-only, or weekend only vehicles, this is fine.
I'm trying to protect people from their own ignorance.
By all means, Jake should go ahead with this. This is good for those people who want to reduce (along with a lightweight flywheel) the total spinning mass. Don't forget to remove the P/S, and remove the A/C. Heck, all your really need is an alternator, and for a serious track car, that is too much anyway -- you just need a big enough battery, and an auxiliary battery charger. In these cases, a lightweight pulley is an excellent choice.
Otherwise, for those who desire an inexpensive to maintain, reliable car, which is still fun to drive, well.... forget this mod.
I'm warning people, and hoping that they will be somewhat educated about the disadvantages of an undamped pulley.
Of further note, you can get away with undamped pulleys on many many other cars, and you can get away with an undamped pulley on an F2/F2T -- for a while, but it will come back to bite you when you least expect it. I'm just saying, don't get bitten.
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