You might have come across the situations where you need to lift large masses onto tall heights. For example the workers repairing the roof of the house either first or second floor require carrying the tools or material to the roof. In that case they use pulley system to carry tools and material.
The same applies to the automotive world. Pulleys are used to increase the automotive performance by increasing the horsepower of the motor or engine. This might seem hard to believe but it is a proven technique that can be applied to your engine in order to increase its performance.
How does it work? In general engine of your car is central part that provides power to many parts other than wheels to move on. The other parts include the alternator, the sir conditioning compressor, the power steering pump etc. all this part are connected to engine, where it passes power to perform their functions. The engine passes on the power to part of automobile with help of pulley system. Within each of these parts, a small pulley system is located, which gets rotated by serpentine belt that is located at the front of the engine.
The small pulleys present in each part of the automobile will take small amount of horsepower from the engine to keep working while you are driving, which is called as parasitic drag.
Well that might not be an issue as it takes only small amount of energy to work two or three small pulleys, but it becomes an issue when you are trying to squeeze every last drop of performance out of your engine.
To make use of every drop of engine performance, many experts suggest installing special pulleys that take less energy to work and are still capable to run your accessories.
There are different types of pulleys that come in different sizes, which you can choose depending on your need.
1. Block and tackle hoist: this pulley system is often seen in shipping because it contains multiple pulleys in blocks to gain mechanical advantage in lifting the material. By doubling up the length of the line to pull the load, then it reduces the input force required.
2. Fixed and movable pulleys: These types of pulleys are very simple. Fixed pulleys are type which can not be moved when the load moves and are therefore serve to change the direction of the input force.
3. Serpentine pulley system: this type of pulley system is connected to several pulleys with a single belt. This can be used in machines that connect with different accessories in a single machine. For example, cars where the engine is connected to different part such as power steering pump alternator and air conditioner compressor.
4. Differential pulley system: this type of pulley systems are used by car mechanics that aid in lifting engines.
Depending on your need from any of the above mentioned pulley systems can be used increase the performance of the machines or aid in your daily work.
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Tags: Muscle car pulley swap
October 18th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
There is no doubt that upgraded pulley systems in cars can help provide more performance. Investing in learning how your car’s engine works will help determine the best course of action to be taken to increase horsepower.