acuteperformance

I think behind what skunkd is really asking is what makes RPi better than Agency Power or any other brand. Maybe a pulley is a pulley is a pulley or maybe not? I don't know enough about either to comment intelligently.

Michael
Acute Performance

Trinity Autosport

Yes it is a pulley, but I PERSONALLY wouldn't put a pulley that was not made in the USA...like I said before I am NOT sure if it's made overseas or in the states...I was just giving my PERSONAL opinion. No sure how I would lose credibility for stating my opinion. I know AP has been around a long time. I was stating my opinion and not feeding you crap.

skelevirus

Oh snap!

RPIpower

a pulley IS a pulley, but there are many different ways to make one. Most are made of aluminum and there are TONS of aluminum types, grades, etc. About 2 years ago, I had the chance to see what a pulley made of cheap aluminum can do. I was at Powerchip and they had Mercedes there with a blown motor because the pulley that was installed broke apart. Then there is the finishing of the pulley. Hard anodizing is also better but more costly than regular anodizing. Although hard anodizing is better, the colors are limited unlike the variety of colors with regular anodizing. Then you have service and support of the product. Who do you want to purchase the product from. To some $50-75 is worth the risk. To others, saving that amount is not worth it. It really comes down to preference and what is important to you.

acuteperformance

You drive an M5, if you're purchasing "other" brands to be save $50-75 maybe you shouldn't be buying an M5.

skunkd

ummm is not 50-75 dollars... the difference in price between the RPi pulley and the Agency power pulley IS 260 DOLLARS! In fact you can buy 2 agency power pulley kits and still keep 65 dollars in your pocket! Maybe thats the difference you were talking about?? Tell me how you guys can ride RPi's balls that hard... for a piece of metal. lol I've seen them both side by side and promise you if you wanna donate 260 to RPi feel free cause they are a great company, but me I got my M5 by being frugal and making smart well informed purchases

some of you guys really amaze me, just because we drive expensive cars doesn't mean a company can't make extremely affordable products that are still of high build quality

acuteperformance

whoa whoa whoa don't begin to lump me in with the "other guys" i am after all the one selling budget coilovers, agency power, and RPi. i just think there's a lot of name calling with no actual backing of why something is better than another.

there's absolutely nothing wrong with being frugal.

RPIpower

Um, no one is on my balls cause if they were Id tell them to get off. lol. The bottom line is, some people want to buy our products and some want to buy products based on other reasons, some being price. We are a business just like any other. Also, if you can tell tensil strength by merely looking at two different pieces side by side, you should go work for NASA or something because you have some serious super hero powers there. I do have some pullies here that are made of cheaper material (samples from my machinist). You can have them for free if you want. Im sure you cant tell the difference. The only reason we were able to was because we marked them.

If you dont know the difference between two products, how you can you intelligently offer them to your customers?

For the record, RPi was an Agency Power vendor. We sold a lot of their products a couple of years ago. AP makes a lot of different products, where as we are more specialized. Lets have a roll call of guys with nothing but RPi products and lets hear about other cars they have raced. Afterall, isnt it about making your car faster? In that case, lets see who out there with RPi products have lost to other cars with the same mods but from a different brand.

acuteperformance

Easily, I don't need to know the manufacturing differences between the two products to sell them. When I sell a product it's based on only a few factors: (1) the history of the product, (2) the reputation and customer service of the product, and (3) ROI.

(2) is VERY important to me, that's why I've dropped certain brands. I've pretended to be a customer who needed help or had an issue to test their customer service.

I just don't think people have the right to bash a product when they can't explain why one is better than the other objectively.

skunkd

I never once said anything negative about RPi because I know you guys are proven power producers with all the mods you make available to us and I have used your products myself on my M5 and previous bmw's. But that doesn't mean another company cannot produce the same caliber goods you do. This is just a pulley we are talking about here. The R&D on a pulley is pretty straight forward compared to other aftermarket mods....

Obviously I can't tell you what each is composed of but I do know that Agency Power has been making aftermarket pulleys since 2004 (had theirs on my STi back then and never had an issue when I was running around with 750whp on my daily driven car.) They do although provide full disclosure of what their product is on their website unlike your very generic description with little to no information.

RPi's website:

"The ST pulley kit helps low end response while adding some pep to your engine. Unlike other pullies on the market, our pulley is hard anodized silver making it difficult to detect from your dealership. Expect 15hp+*.
Kit includes:

- RPi ST underdrive pulley
- Installation Hardware
- New belts

*Dynojet numbers*"

Agency Powers website:

"Our pulley is made from 6061 aluminum that is precision CNC machined. All of our pulley kits are anodized and then laser engraved with the Agency Power name. Our pulley kit includes new belts and bolts for a easy installation. This pulley has been reduced about 30% in diameter of the factory unit. Along with the reduction in rotational weight, the pulley gives improved throttle response on down low rpms where the V10 lags and pulls harder through the midrange. The pulley will not affect any harmonics that the OEM pulley may take into account. This is an extremely safe bolt on modification.

Our real world Mustang dyno numbers show a gain across the full torque and horsepower RPM range. Peak gains were 13rwhp and 18ft/lbs of torque. The test vehicle was a 2006 SMG M5 running on 91octane in an ambient temperature of 95F. The car was equipped with a PowerChip ECU flash and Catback Exhaust by Agency Power. Compared to the competition, our pulley is the same overall underdriven diameter. Using the Mustang Dyno, performance numbers are always much lower then such as a DynoJet. We also only show true wheel horsepower gains. Peak torque and horsepower are made around 5900rpm."

P.S. Just so you know, I don't even have a Agency Power Pulley on my car yet but I did order one 2 months ago because it's more aggressively under-driven then my dinan. I plan on installing it shortly. For the price, it's extremely hard to pass up is all i'm saying. I love RPi and think their products are priced well below most competitors while providing the highest gains around. But agency power has priced this particular mod at a price point where it is almost a no brainer blowing away the competition in the price category considering they aren't an "other brand, or a no name brand."