stas

Hi, as the title states, I am planning to get a Turn One power steering pump and I'm wondering if I should also opt for the billet aluminum pulley ($74) that complements it. The car is a '01 Z06 and has the plastic pulley. I could reuse the stock pulley since I don't plan to replace my steering pump very often after the upgrade or get the metal LS2 pulley which I heard is considerably heavier. My main concerns are strength of the pulley and weight.

Thanks.

Scooter70

I did. It makes installation easier and I wasn't able to get the old pulley off without destroying it. Plus as soon as you say that you're not going to take it off again, you will.

CHJ In Virginia

I agree 100% with Scooter. You will not get the old plastic one off without breaking it and the billett pulley from Turn One makes the reinstall very easy.

rmackintosh

Yep, installation easier, and it looks WAY better! ;-)

J.R.

Yes

mgarfias

I'm about to do this (have the new pulley). Should I not bother trying to get the old pulley off gracefully and just cut the **** off?

whatcop?

I will go with no. Granted I didn't do the switch but my shop did. Turn one told me its more use for people that switch the pumps often.

varkwso

CHJ In Virginia

Just use a big screwdriver behind the pulley, lean on it and break a section or two off. Only need enough to be able to get a socket on the mounting bolts, it's easy.

Scooter70

The easiest way to get the pump out of the car is to take the pump and bracket off as one piece. You'll have to loosen/remove the bracket that holds the brake line block on so you can push that forward. I zip-tied it to the radiator hose to hold it in place after I got the bracket out. Then loosen all of the bolts that hold the bracket to the head and take the pump/bracket out. After trying unsuccessfully to remove the pulley from the pump on the bench, I smacked it with a hammer and punched a hole it in. You need to get the bolts out from behind the pulley and there's no way to do it with the pulley in place. That's the great thing about the TurnOne pulley is that it has holes so you can get to those bolts.

stas

Thanks for the replies folks. I don't know about the ease of installation aspect though, I already replaced the pump once (a couple of seasons ago) and I just took out the entire bracket as said above. I used a pulley puller and removed the stock pulley with no issues, will have to do it again to remove my stock pump.. According to Turn One, the stock pulley weighs in at .7944 lb vs. .925 lb for their billet unit. That's not much of a weight gain for the reliability.. I think the LS2 is way heavier. Question is still whether I actually need it, provided I can remove the plastic one with no issues.

SouthernSon

I have this setup. Plus, I have the broken OEM one, too.

trackboss

I also use the turn one pump/pulley. On another car I've used a krc pump and the one thing I like about those (that I wish turn one did) is that they use a splined shaft so the pulley is easily removable. When I got my turn one setup a few years ago I asked about that and they didn't have anything to say. It makes things a whole lot easier.

TB04TJ

From personal experience, the odds of removing the plastic pulley in one piece are slim. I would be prepared to replace the pulley. The main problem is that the flange on the plastic breaks when you try to remove it, even when using the correct tools.