A nice informative article Spankdanny, which appears to be based on the experience of the writer of the article. Personally I wouldn’t risk it for the sake of a few BHP. I had always assumed that Alfa spent a not inconsiderable amount of money developing their engine, and like most manufacturers have added a damped pulley ( as well as a counter balance shaft on the twinny). This probably to damp out damaging vibrations, hence the name. I guess it depends on how long you want your engine to last, and how smooth you want it to be, but if a chap in a shed with a lathe has managed to produce such an excellent item, I would ask myself why aren’t all of the engine manufacturers fitting them, because if they did this bloke in a shed would be a very rich man, and the major car manufacturers would be fitting them as standard, which as far as I know, they are not. Let’s face it, this type of pulley would be much cheaper to manufacture than the damped ones, and if manufacturers can save one fifth of a penny anywhere they will. Having visited a couple of car plants, and looked at their ‘lean’ methods, they would have picked up on this damperless, smaller, underdriven pulley long ago. I would spend the £175 on taking the wife away for a night, much more worthwhile
