Hello one and all,

Pulley install took me 4 hours.

Took me about an hour to get the SC pulley bolt off. I had a big screwdriver and a... ahem... rubber soled sandle to help me take it off. It was a pain in the bleepity bleep to get off. Lets just say the swearing begun early.

I also had trouble getting the stock pulley itself off, i pounded a bit with my hands (firmly yet gently) and finally got it off. Stupid me, I measured the gapping of the stock pulley but forgot what it was by the end. If I remember correctly, it was about .25 to .30.

So, reverse the steps, code 3 is on, and all shims were REMOVED since even after tightening the bolt to roughly 14.5 ft/lbs the gapping was pretty close to .29 or so. Belts properly aligned (double and triple check) and the test drive. Performance was great, midranged seemed MUCH improved.

However, I started smelling things. Very subtle things. Like a hint of burning rubber.

So I hightailed it back to the garage and parked. And listened. And smelled. I smelled near the pulley and the best way I could describe it was the smell those old electric hot wheels smelled like after running them on the track over and over again. The belts looked fine, I could find no sign of wear. The pulley sounded ok on initial startup but started sounding like it was scraping or something, despite spinning freely by hand without causing the black... thingy to spin with it.

The questions:

1. Why does my pulley sound like sandpaper and smell like electric hot wheels? Hard to say, I know... It seems to be gapped within spec, as the code 3 instructions say .20 to .30 is OK. Am I being too OCD about it, or is there cause for concern? I have no shims (though billvp was kind enough to send one my way that is arriving soon).

2. The torque wrench I have is in ft/lbs, so I could only guestimate at 14.75 (for 20 nm). Could someone tell me if anything between 14 and 15 is sufficient? The reason I ask is it's analog, and I was attempting to pry and tighten at the same time, which I couldn't get it exactly at 14.75.

3. For the pulleys that don't have grooves, are you just supposed to line it up center as best you can and thats it?

4. Is it normal for code 3 pulleys to have varying gapping across the outer edges? Gapping on the pulley has much more varience than the stock pulley, in some areas about .29 and others about .24 or so. Just want to check in case I have a warped pulley or if this is normal.

I am meticulous in details, though I am questioning my methods. Everything looks good, but with the pulley measurements being so precise im worried that I mucked something up. And from what I've read, its better to find problems early before you shred a belt, etc.

Thanks for sticking with this long read.