Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Branches Eastern Canada DM Damper Group buy....Canadian

Ya shipping should be lower. How do we get a hold of Terry to get this going? Where's Joe? The mod bug is hiiting me big time right now ... if I wait too long it may go away . Let's get a show of hands right now. So far it looks like me and Joe and maybe you Evan if the time's right. Are you in Dana? Anyone else?

Hi

(newbie question again)

What is a Damper?

Derek

Harmonic vibration dampener.

It's attached to the crankshaft pulley (bottom centre of engine). It's (very) basically a piece of rubber inserted into a pulley that stops resonance from destroying your engine.

What did that mean?

Have you ever seen someone dip their finger in water and rub it on the rim of a crystal glass? Hear that ringing sound; it's resonance. All objects have a resonance frequency, or a point at which they start to vibrate. Those waves are sometimes audible, sometimes not. In the case of your engine, the natural resonance frequecy occurs around 4500 rpm. At that point the crankshaft and block start to vibrate (not audible) with one another. That vibration can, over time, destroy the engine.

Underdrive pulleys (UDP) are marketed as "lighter". They are lightened by removing the rubber damper that comes on the stock pulley. By using a lighter pulley the engine is able to spin up faster because there is less weight (and thus friction) on the crankshaft. However, when you remove the damper you also remove the factory's method of stopping those harmful resonance waves from destroying the engine.

Now, the real question is, is the Ford damper really effective? Quite a few engineers have shown why those stock dampers are useful, and why not to use a UDP. There is evidence on both sides of the arguement that a UDP does no harm, and evidence that it does.

Chris has a UDP on his 95SE, and it has not caused any harm to the car so far. However, many people have had catastrophic engine failure that can be directly attributed to these pulleys. You have to make your own choice if you want one or not.

No one can honestly tell you that a non-dampened engine is better than one that is properly dampened. Unless of course they don't believe in physics. A better arguement for them might be that the stock damper on our cars simply does not cancel out all of the vibrations.

The dual-mode damper is an improvement, a factory supplied improvement, over the original Duratec crankshaft pulley. They supposedly make the engine run smoother and according to Terry Haines (the designer of our engine) work much better.

Given I have high mileage on my car (121,000 Km) I would invest in the damper for the sake of peace of mind. There are many more likely causes of engine failure than harmonic destruction but it will make me feel better to have the pulley installed.

I haven't checked up on the performance improvements this dual-mode damper offers yet. I'm not really interested either as I have a long commute and my engine spends most of it's time right at or just under 4,000 rpm. It's worth the investment to me.

Yes I'm in for this, but I need a little time.

As for Terry, I know he's been quite busy and is (I think) doing research on his new project cars. I suspect, but have no proof, that he is going to be moving over to the Focus market next. So everyone who has a Zetec may be in for some serious performance improvements in the near future.

Should I win the lottery I may be one of the exceptionally rare twin turbo-charged 3.0L ZX2 owners. I'm looking forward to 500 bhp and 2478 lbs of resistance. 0-60 in say, 3.5 sec?

OK. I'm gonna have to move on this on my own then unless I can't get this from Terry by the time you & Evan wanna buy. I'll post impressions once it's on ... at this rate of non-contact with TH, who knows when. Nice explanation BTW.

I'm definately interested in this, let me know when you guys get this group buy together, any indications on price? i know bat's selling them for $98US now but heard there out of stock....

Has Terry given a price yet for a group buy? Is it better then BAT's price of $98.00?

Hi Guys,

Sorry I haven't reposted in a while. Let's make this the official thread for the damper now. I put a message in the GB forum reflecting this.

Well I was waiting for Terry to come back to me with a shipping price for 5 dampers to the same address. In the meantime, BAT started selling them. That, combined with other things, has soured HMS on pursuing this any further.

Things to keep in mind:
- noone is going to give us a discount on a quantity of 5 or so.
- I'm hoping on getting the savings by having all the DMDs shipped to the same address and the order all placed on one charge card.
- The preffered method of shipment is USPS since we'll save on the brokerage charge that way.

Shipping for 5 DM Dampers from USPS to Canada:

International Calculator

If you mail your 26 pound Economy (Surface) Parcel Post to Canada, we estimate arrival in 4 - 6 Weeks*

Itemized Service Summary Service Item Price
Economy (Surface) Parcel Post $26.05
Insured for $500.00 $6.00
Pickup Cost $10.25

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TOTAL CHARGES $42.30

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So an rough estimate would be:

(estimated exchange is 1.61)


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If someone could find out if there would be any duties, that would be great. The item will be listed as "Automobile replacement part" for the customs inspectors.

Currently BAT is out stock. The turnaround time for an order of 5 is 1 or 2 weeks before they ship it out the door.

For comparison sake, here is the shipping on just one DMD.:

International Calculator

If you mail your 6 pound Economy (Surface) Parcel Post to Canada, we estimate arrival in 4 - 6 Weeks*

Itemized Service Summary Service Item Price
Economy (Surface) Parcel Post $15.75
Insured for $100.00 $2.00
Pickup Cost $10.25

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TOTAL CHARGES $28.00

So buying in a group of 5, would save us each about $14.30 USD ($23.03 CDN). And the customs handling fee ($5, IIRC)is only applied once.

So the more we buy, the more we save. Again, I'd like to restrict this GB to the GTA and Golden triangle area if possible, but anyone can get in as long as they don't driving to the ultimate delivered site, be it KW or GTA.

Based on this "newer" info, let's have a show of hands on this.

Oh yeah, I just noticed that the above rate was for surfacewhich is 4 to 6 weeks.

Here is an estimate for the next service level up:
If you mail your 26 pound Airmail Parcel Post to Canada, we estimate arrival in 4 - 7 Days*

Itemized Service Summary Service Item Price
Airmail Parcel Post $39.85
Insured for $500.00 $6.00
Pickup Cost $10.25

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TOTAL CHARGES $56.10

This is what I use to calculate the rate:
http://ircalc.usps.gov/

Each DMD weighs 5 lbs. I add a pound on top of that as well.

That was an amazing explanation, Ghosst. Thanks for taking the time to help out us newbies...you kinda start to feel left out when everybody's discussing something you have no idea about.

I just have one question...

In the first paragraph, you speak of the damper as "a piece of rubber inserted into a pulley that stops resonance from destroying you engine". In the second paragraph you say "the dual-mode damper is an improvement...over the original Duratec crankshaft pulley". That sounds like it completely replaces the pulley. Or did you mean that "the dual-mode damper is an improvement over the original Duratec crankshaft pulley damper"? If the latter is the case, could the DM damper also be added to an underdrive pulley?