Steeda vs BBK underdrive pulley kit

Jagerbeast · Jun 25, 2010

Just wondering if anyone has a preference and why. I found the BBK set on AM for like 150, while the Steedas were about 200 at stangmods. Curious if theres that much of a difference for 50 bucks

Thanks

Stumbaugh · Jun 25, 2010

Steeda's are the only way to go.

See, BBK's use a piggyback style pulley. That means that you have to reuse your old harmonic balancer. So you are using a redesigned pulley on a stock harmonic balancer. They are notorious for causing unwanted vibrations.

Steeda actually teamed up with Ford when they design their underdrive pulleys. Steeda's underdrive pulley kit comes with a new, one piece balanced pulley/dampener, which is why it is more expensive, but the quality of the parts is better plus no vibrations!

sneaky98gt · Jun 25, 2010

Steeda

joshjwc9 · Jun 25, 2010

Stumbaugh said:
Steeda's are the only way to go.

See, BBK's use a piggyback style pulley. That means that you have to reuse your old harmonic balancer. So you are using a redesigned pulley on a stock harmonic balancer. They are notorious for causing unwanted vibrations.

Steeda actually teamed up with Ford when they design their underdrive pulleys. Steeda's underdrive pulley kit comes with a new, one piece balanced pulley/dampener, which is why it is more expensive, but the quality of the parts is better plus no vibrations!

This.

$50 to swap to a SFI approved balancer too. You cannot find one that is better than the steeda piece for the price.

BurningRubber · Jun 25, 2010

Piggyback pulleys are fo suckas and 5.0's.

Dark04GT · Jun 25, 2010

sneaky98gt said:
Steeda

+1

Rasikajay · Jun 25, 2010

Steeda!

robmac36067 · Jun 25, 2010

I just don't get it

I had ebay special 50 dollars pulleys on my car for 6 years till I sold it and never had any trouble. So i'm calling b/s on this one.

BurningRubber · Jun 25, 2010

robmac36067 said:
I had ebay special 50 dollars pulleys on my car for 6 years till I sold it and never had any trouble. So i'm calling b/s on this one.

Some people get by fine, some have had trouble with them.

The problem with the cheap kits are that their manufacturing specs may not be super stringent, and if you produce a balancer that's out of balance, it can mean big problems for your engine.

Steeda's design is the best there is as far as a basic U/D pulley kit. There are a few other very good non-factory dampeners out there as well.

The balancing problem seems to show up more in the 4v crowd since they have an extra thousand RPM's to play with.

Dark04GT · Jun 26, 2010

The steeda pulleys are easy enough to install. Spend a little extra and don't have to worry about the chance that it could throw things off. Sure you could get away with the piggy backs but why not spend ~50 extra bucks and get something that has superior engineering.

Gearbanger 101 · Jun 26, 2010

joshjwc9 said:
This.

$50 to swap to a SFI approved balancer too. You cannot find one that is better than the steeda piece for the price.

....unless you go with the Summit pulleys. Same SFI approval, for $50 less than the Steeda's.

Had them on my F150 for a year now without a single issue.

joshjwc9 · Jun 26, 2010

I think the Summits are made by Steeda or Trickflow, so you get the same quality without the name on it!

mustanggt04fast · Jun 26, 2010

i have steeda's on my car all in all i think there worth less dont see much improvement with them and i have bbk's on my 2000 gt and hated the piggy back style

02nightmaregt · Jun 27, 2010

Steeda. Here are some pics of the BBK's I had on there

Here is the only one of the Steeda I took, but you can still tell how much more quality they are

Jagerbeast · Jun 28, 2010

Thanks everyone ...

Any reports of the steedas draining the battery? I've read a couple from AM, one guy says he needed a bigger alternator to power his stereo system (subs, amp) and another guy says he couldnt leave his stereo on long without the car running. Course they both could have just had low batterys anyway, just wondering if any of you have had any of these experiences.

BurningRubber · Jun 28, 2010

General consensus is you should be fine on a stock system or lightly upgraded system (assuming your battery and alternator are fine), but on a larger system you're better off sticking to stock pulleys.

Gearbanger 101 · Jun 28, 2010

Another easy and cheap fix of you're running some sort of booming stereo system is to just swap out to a smaller diameter alternator pulley. The alternator consumes the least amount of drag anyway. That's what I did when adding the electric water pump and fans to my F150. No charging issues what so ever.

sneaky98gt · Jun 28, 2010

I've got the Mach 460 system, a Sony head unit, and 2 12's powered by a 1000 watt mono amp (400 watt RMS), and back when I had my pulleys on, I had no problems at all. When I had the car in the drive at idle, foot on the brake, A/C wide open, lights on, and radio blaring, the voltage needle went to about halfway between straight up and the 8 on the left, but everything was still fine. As soon as I touched the gas pedal, the needle went right back where it was supposed to. No problems at all. You'd have to have a pretty serious sound system for it to not give enough charge.

32ValveRom · Jun 28, 2010

+1 on the Steedas

StangSims39 · Jun 28, 2010

one thing i did on my tbird was at the light just pop it in Neutral, i had a full system in the car two 12" JL W3's and a 1000W amp for them, it was fine in Neutral, the needle did dip a bit in gear but it was still fine.

Steeda vs BBK underdrive pulley kit

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