<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/19850/v8_coolant_hoses.jpg"></center><p>I've got an ABZ 4.2L v8 engine that has the same power steering pulley as the 12v engines. When I was at the junk yard I noticed that the early v8 engine had a smaller pulley so i grabbed it. If I were to run this pulley vs the stock pulley would I overdrive the stock 12v/a8 power steering pump where it would cause issuses? If I were to make this smaller pulley work with my setup it might free up some needed room in the front of my car. With all this being said I'm not running AC in this car and I might move the power steering pump to the AC position at some point. For the sake of getting the car running, I'm leaving the stock setup including the stock power steering pump pulley. I'd just like to start considering and looking at all my potential options.

Thanks
Josh

Underdrive refers to having a smaller crankshaft pulley and larger accessory pulleys. It lowers the rotational mass of the crank pulley making it easier to spin.

Think of it like the granny gear on your 10 speed. Little ring on the pedals big ring on the wheel. Easy to pedal.

I asked if the smaller power steering pulley would "overdrive" the power steering pump. The smaller powersteering pulley would spin the power steering pump quicker. If it spins it faster I'm wonder what the consequences of a smaller power steering pulley? Could I burn out the bearing etc? Would steering be effected? I'm not touching any other pulley size besides possibly the power steering pulley to have a little more room. I may just end up trying both setups and see what happens. I've got a few power steering pumps to play around with these days.

And that you were looking for potential performance gains. Here's an article that sums it up pretty good.

As far as whether you could burn up you PS pump, that's always possible. If you want to get anal you could measure the pulley's and with a little math find out how much faster it would be turning. under normal driving it would probably be fine. A few people here have modded their 12V and can spin much higher RPM's than the rest of us, implying that the PS pump is also spinning faster with out any breakdown.

in other words, unless you were always running at redline (which would probably kill the motor before the PS pump) you should be fine with the smaller pulley. As far as HP gains, minimal if any. You have to underdrive the crank pulley.

nice to have options nevertheless. The offset on the smaller pulley is slightly different so I'm going to probably have to make a spacer if I use it but that's ok with me.