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If you have ever had your stock belt dampener wear out or fail, then you probably know you can't just buy the dampener, you have to buy the entire $250+ assembly. We solve this very popular problem with our new ALTA Adjustable Tensioner Stop. Its a replacement for the dampener but in the form of something completely different.
This part was designed after an employee suffered a belt failure, which destroyed a crank pulley (very common and pictured below), which lead to him having to buy a new BMW tensioner assembly. He wasn't excited to spend $250 on the tensioner and $120 on the pulley, but did it as it was the only way to fix his problems after his belt failed.
A few months later his car was making a terrible noise and after inspection we noticed his tensioner dampener was bad. The only way to fix this was to replace the entire $250 assembly, and BMW was out of stock of this part for two weeks! This problem is what spawned our ALTA Adjustable Tensioner Stop.
For those who have not experienced this, keep in mind that at some point, you will! As your OEM dampener wears out, you start to get a lot of bouncing of the tensioner pulley. This bouncing effects the actual tension on your serpentine belt, which in turn causes your belt to slip around your supercharger pulley. As soon as this happens you will loose all that horsepower your aftermarket parts are adding to your car. This is a silent problem that you may not even be aware of.
The second thing that happens is the rubber bushings in the dampener start to wear, which causes strange wobbling or chirping noises from your engine. This also causes further dampener wear as the dampener is beat back and forth from the bouncing of the tensioner pulley. Below is a picture of what happens over time to the bushings. Both these problems resulted in a loss in belt tension and a loss in horsepower which no one wants!
With over a year in testing on many customer cars (that had their dampeners fail), this part is finally ready for everyone. Our part replaces the OEM dampener with a solid mounted adjustable piece that will not fail or wear out and helps keep your belt from slipping under full throttle.
In the above picture you can see our ALTA Adjustable Tensioner Stop mounted where the OEM dampener goes. Removing the dampener and installing our part, creates a solid joint between the tensioner pulley and the engine, but we take this one step further. We make this connection adjustable in length which allows you to add additional tension to the belt, beyond what the spring alone does. This is a great feature as some customers require a bit more tension on the belt in racing conditions where the supercharger is being pushed to the max.
Besides this part fixing the problems mentioned above, it also fixes another common problem that MINI's suffer from. When your serpentine belt fails, its a 50/50 shot if the OEM tensioner stop (small twist in pin, in below pic), keeps the tensioner pulley from ramming into the crank pulley.
If this happens, expect to purchase a new crank pulley as well as a new tensioner from Mini. The ALTA Adjustable Tensioner Stop also acts as a stop for when the belt breaks. We currently sell our ALTA Tensioner Stop that does this same job, but we feel this newer part will take over as it has those other added benefits. Also as the dampener wears out, or the bushings wear out, the ALTA tensioner stop (as well as others) can also become loose or dislodged negating its benefits.
It's so much simpler to fix all these problems before they happen by replacing your OEM tensioner dampener with our ALTA Adjustable Tensioner stop. At a price much cheaper than the factory tensioner, it will easily save you hundreds of dollars over the life of your car!