Thread: How To: Crank pulley -- Oil Pump -- Spacer (all common combinations explained!)

I was just like you 6 months ago. I had no idea what the difference was between the VE and DE crank pulleys. I had no idea what the Gspec spacer was all about and why he sold it. I had no idea what the differences were between the VE and DE oil pumps when it came to their dimensions.

I learned very quickly about all of that stuff when @ashtonsser and I had trouble upgrading our DE engines to the VE oil pump. Ashtonsser did a decent job explaining the problem in one of his threads and I had planned on doing the same in my build thread with tons of pictures I'd taken.

It's become quite obvious now that we need a detailed How To thread about this part of our engines. I haven't got around to organizing my pictures yet but I wasn't going to let that stop me from shedding some light on this area for others. I've made a technical drawing that should explain most everything you need to know about crank pulleys, oil pumps and spacers in any combination you can imagine. For our intents and purposes, the stock VE crank pulley and the aluminum Gspec pulley are the same part. I know the Gspec pulley has a smaller diameter than the OEM VE crank pulley, but we are ignoring that in my diagram.
Also, the GTi-R oil pump gear is the same dimension as the VE oil pump gear so if you're looking to use a GTi-R oil pump keep that in mind.

If you have some special combination of parts I've left off the drawing please don't hesitate to ask about it. Let me know what specific parts you plan on using and I'll tell you if it will work or not, and what issues you might run into.

I plan on posting the detailed pictures I took later on. Look for those in post #2 when I get the time.




Here is a picture and link for the new style of Gspec (Greg Vogel) oil pump spacer.

G Spec Performance Oil Pump Drive / Pulley Spacer, SR20




This just in:

The Gspec aluminum VE crank pulley can't be used with a GTi-R oil pump (front cover). There is a bump on the front cover that doesn't clear the pulley. You will need to purchase the Gspec aluminum GTi-R pulley instead.

Pictures and information courtesy of drifterx27.





Another great picture for this thread from Greg Vogel:
Greg's aluminum VE oil pump drive collar on the left shows how long the VE collar is compared to the DE oil pump drive collar on the right. The spacer he sells makes up the difference in length bringing the DE collar up to the same length as the VE one.

This is taken from my build thread. It explains the problem with the old Gspec spacer and why a new one was designed.





After tightening the crank bolt down some the crankshaft would not turn.
Dan and I sat around wondering what was going on for a while. I also remembered ashtonsser having trouble with his GTi-R oil pump and Greg's pulley spacer. So we took the pulley off and did some inspecting.

What do you know? The stock DE oil pump drivel collar is slightly too short so it doesn't fully penetrate the VE oil pump drive gear. It is maybe 1-2mm too short so when the pulley is tightened down the spacer presses against the oil pump drive gear is two places forcing it against the back of the oil pump housing. If you tighten it down with an impact gun you'll likely push the gear through the back of the oil pump housing. If you crank the engine over like ashtonsser did you're certainly going to ruin the oil pump.

The engine is not happy.






Luckily I caught the problem before any real damage was done because I was using hand tools at the time.
Here you can see the oil pump drive gear is 1mm or 2mm farther out than the oil pump drive collar that is inside it. You can also see the mark where the Gspec spacer pressed against the oil pump drive gear and left a little aluminum behind.


Here is the other side where the spacer made contact as well.






Here is the spacer. You can clearly see the indentation that was made when I tried to tighten everything together.






I took the spacer over to the grinder and solved the problem.


I called Greg Vogel at Gspec and talked to him and told him about the issue. He'd already been through this with ashtonsser so he knew what was going on, and he was in fact in the process of modifying all of his spacers by doing a similar modification that I had. If you buy a spacer from Greg is should look like my modified one, not a perfect circle.



Checking for clearance in the oil pump.


The engine seemed happy again after this mod.








Dan's cleaning up the Grey RTV on the front cover before putting it on again.


Here is the modified spacer installed and compared to the oil pump drive collar.


It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to fit.







At this point in the game, I should have taken the chain oiler pin out and put it back in with some red loc-tite. But I'm an idiot and didn't know about that problem/tendency with the VE oil pump so I left it alone.

Good write up just enough info for anyone that is interested in doing the work by itself..

Dude you are such a valuable asset to this forum and you don't even know it. Thanks for all that you do man.

this

Ben, you have the mind of an engineer

Updated first post with additional information about the GTi-R oil pump / front cover.
Thanks to drifterx27 for the pics and info. Ashtonsser also corroborated the findings.

Got a question Ben, would a VE pump simply bolt onto a gti-r motor with the oem gti-r pulley?

- Ben is the old style spacer even available? It shouldn't be.

Good question. Yes, I believe that everything would work out perfectly with this setup. The only thing I'm unsure on is the pickup tube diameter. You'd probably want to just go ahead and use a VE pick-up tube just in case. Although the GTi-R tube might bolt up and be just as wide.

About 4 months ago I talked to Greg and he was in the middle of modifying all of the spacers he had in stock to the new style. If you bought a spacer from him in the past 3 months or so you should have got the new style. You're correct, the old style is not available any more, and the new style is the only one you can get from Gspec (for good reason).

I've included the info about the old style spacer because there are likely a few dozen of them floating around that might hit the secondary market. If you get one, you'll know what you have.