Attn: Paul/BT Motorsports

I'm not trying to persuade you from buying ESM billet tensioner pulleys but we do have two other companies making billet tensioner pulleys for our cars. It's just an option so that's why I'm throwing that out there.

Both Billet Flow and Hearland Innovations make billet tensioner pulleys for our cars. Both can be found in the Group Purchases / Specials under posts for each company about the 2nd page.

Just trying to give you options.
 
Todd, I haven't gotten around to it yet, though I should have long ago, to take the billet tensioners off the web page. They were discontinued some time ago thanks to the efforts of Duane to get the Billet flow and Heartland pieces to market. I would suggest the Billet Flow pieces over the Heartland pulleys, they are much better quality.

Paul
 
Look at my price and compare it to theirs. We made the pulleys with runs of 15-21 pieces at a time where they make 100 or more per run. There was never any high demand for the pulleys shown by the community, so production runs never exceeded those levels which would cause the price to come down. Additionally, the pulleys were originally designed to work with the 10 rib pulley system ESM designed, but since Duane gave the size and offset to Billet Flow and Heartland, that pretty much ended the demand for the pulleys from ESM. Like anything else in this world, be innovative,design something new for the public to suit their needs and someone will be waiting to copy it:rolleyes: Its instances like this which stopped the R&D of new products for the SC by ESM. If people are going to copy it, might as well make something that is worth patenting and going to court over. Some will argue that its the fault of the manufacturer for not producing a higher volume to remain competitive but the reality is, this is a small market and there is not a large profit margin to be had. To tie up large amounts of money in stock let alone machining is not really feasible or a worthy proposition.

Paul
 
I would agree with Paul.There would be a lot more innovative parts available to the SC community.
But there are just to many pirates.So a lot of parts will never be manufactured and sold.
Its just not feasible to invest weeks or month in R&D just to loose the part.

If you have manufactures and vendors dedicated to SC market.That will do all the
work,ideas,R&D,just to have some one pirate the part and take it to a machine shop
to have copyed.Yes you may get a part cheaper for a short time.But since the pirate
& his machine shop is not dedicated to SCs the parts will disapear after a while
& so will the deadicated SC vendor that would of been around for the long haul..

But allso some vendors are just charging to high of a price,and encouraging this
to happin.Some need to do more than just shove on a pencil and think they
deserve to make money.Design or machine somthing.

RANDY
 
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I see both sides of that one. If a part is so easy to make that anyone can copy it, then why not let the cheaper price prevail? If company "A" is set up to produce a product cheaper than "B" then we need to go with "A" or we are just shooting ourselves in the foot. I do not think that we should pay $500 for a "part" especially when the benefits of said "part" are questionable. This is the case with many SC "parts". It does not need to be so expensive for us to get performance out of an SC motor. Truely innovative parts are not so easily copied. Although I am quite certain that Bob Steigemeier would not be upset if Holley were to offer a casted head that outflows his design for less money. That would simply give him the opportunity to concentrate on the next level of performance instead of being stuck where we are at currently. Innovators will always push the envelope.

Classic example is blower porting. ESM did some great work on some blowers. But they were so secretive about their designs that there ended up being (and still is) a lot of guessing about what worked or didn't hence consumer confidence went into the toilet. A contrast to that is the blower porting that Apten is doing on the Cobra blowers. They have shown publicly everything they have done to the blower and explained why they did it. Seems they can't keep up with demand. People want to know what you are doing and why before they will spend their money. They are not willing to accept something just because you say so. I think there is an important business lesson to be had there.
 
Dave D: your right.and this is one of those post were every body comments
will have merrit.So I am out of here.Not going to get in the middle of another
bad thread, untill next week ANYWAY. :D
RANDY
 
so in everyones opinion which is the better tension set???? Also do botgh of them directly bolt on without ANY modification???

Todd
 
I hate to say it but that ported Apten Blower I just seen in 5.0 magazine looks just like the prototype version ported by ESM I had seen way before Apten even offered one many months ago. Why?..Who knows..What came first..The chicken or the egg....

Thsi is a reason why noone will make anything for these cars unless out of love..Or bragging rights. There is no money in it..And someone will copy it..

$500 for an MP inlet....Commone now......Talk about jacking up a price...Yet I still bought one
 
Todd: the best pulleys should be coated,either clear or colored.
Do not buy any aluminum pulley that isnt coated with some type
hard face coating.Aluminum without being coated ware a lot faster.

RANDY
 
I've had a couple generations of the ESM pulleys and now have Billet Flow on the main accesory and jackshaft belts and a Heartland 10 rib pulley on the Supercharger belt.

Price was not my reason for switching brands, It was durability (mainly bearing failures). I haven't really had the Billet Flow and Heartland pulleys on my car long enough to see if they will last longer than the ESM pulleys. I do know the surface of the pulley that the belt rides on, is holding up great. I'll let you know how the bearings do in a few more months.

David
 
In my defense, I would like to point out that both companies never had an ESM tensioner in their hands to copy. Both companies worked from a Dayco tensioner pulley that is made for the Cobra, which is, a direct replacement for our tensioner pulley. David Neibert did give me the width of the wider tensioner pulley that is made for the ESM 10 rib but I don’t think that’s a crime. Heartland wanted to make all the tensioner pulleys and that included the wider pulley for 10 rib systems. This really grew from the perspective of having everything match. Heartland makes a power steering pulley with slots so it made sense to offer tensioner pulleys with the same slots. Really, you can mix and match any part from any company if you choose too.

Anyway, there are just so many ways to make a tensioner pulley so I don’t think one company is infringing on the other company. It’s like that in a lot of things, such as, aftermarket wheels, tires, superchargers, radiators.

I’m not getting after anyone or anything like that. I just don’t want people to think I’m the bad person here for getting companies to make parts for us that are the same part. I don’t even make a single dime from any of those companies’ sales.

So, to iterate, I’m not attacking anyone and my consciences is clear with my dealings with both companies. All I want to do is get companies to make parts for our cars.
 
I haven't but it's going on April 17th when Thomas comes down to put it on. Thomas has one but I'm not sure if he has it installed or not. Actually, I think he does have it installed and he likes it. I think I need to find out.
 
Damon :Here is a picture of the Heartland power steering pulley
Todd :and a heartland idler pulley.

Thanks for getting this together NETTLESD

RANDY
 

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Randy,

Wow, that does look nice on there.


Damon,

I've heard upwards of 25hp and even a stout 50hp when installed. ;) Man, I can't wait to feel that 50hp when I get mine on.
 
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