TPITuned Port Injection discussion and questions. LB9 and L98 tech, porting, tuning, and bolt-on aftermarket products.
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First off, I'm bored and tired, so I felt like doodling with Illustrator!
Secondly, If any of the "known" routing info is off, PLEASE tell me!!!! I'm pretty sure it's OK though.
OK, the meat and potatoes of my idea. Obviously, for this to work, you'd need to delete your AC and get a 1LE pulley, but a LOT of us have done this, including myself. Secondly, you'd have to actually KEEP your smog pump, which of course is a drain on the motor, PLUS weight. I realize that you hardcore racers won't have any of THAT!!!:nono:
That said, would my "schnazzy" belt routing work? It would make a HUGE differnce in engine bay appearance!!! You'd have to get a adjustable alternator support bracket to take up the slack in the belt, and probably fab some sort of support to help the alt. housing support the tension AND be adjustable but that's no biggie. As far as I can tell from looking, the smog pump to alternator path should easily clear the water pump.
Can anyone see why this wouldn't work??? If there aren't any obvious flaws to my plan, I think I'm gonna try it.
you've got to watch the water pump rotation direction when you re-route the belts like you've done.
the vanes in the pump are directional, and must be correct for the pump to operate as designed............one of your re-routes reverses the pump direction.
Originally posted by crusader27529 you've got to watch the water pump rotation direction when you re-route the belts like you've done.
the vanes in the pump are directional, and must be correct for the pump to operate as designed............one of your re-routes reverses the pump direction.
I see counter clockwise in all three (four with TPI383's).
Quote:
Originally posted by Scott_92RS What keeps tension on the belt on your last route? Nice diagrams, btw!
Doesn't the alternator have slide mounts on the serp belt set up?
with the setup you posted, if i added the AC compressor on there and put the belt from the alt to the AC then to the tensioner, would the belt clear the back of the tensioner?
i donno.. i want a "Clean" surp belt look for my car, but i want to keep the AC.
As far as I can see, the water pump is OK is all the diagrams.
TPI383, how'd you get the tensioner to tension "up"?
To keep tension on "my" re-route solution, you'd have to adjust the position of the alternator a tad, and just tighten it down while it's under tension.
Originally posted by Abubaca
TPI383, how'd you get the tensioner to tension "up"?
according to another post, when you take it apart, you can flip the backing plate over and it works backwards... or somthing like that.. he said it wasnt too hard.
Quote:
Originally posted by Abubaca
To keep tension on "my" re-route solution, you'd have to adjust the position of the alternator a tad, and just tighten it down while it's under tension.
thats not going to work with the stock brackets.. theres not enough movement to adjust the tension properly.
Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how I'd do it yet. I haven't got in there to look at it, but I'm sure something could be figured out without too much effort.
...and as far as the stock brackets....on the passenger side especially, where does the bracket mount to the motor? Could you cut off the tensioner/AC portion all together, and still be able to attach it to the engine? You'd want to sand and smooth, and maybe powdercoat it, but would it still be able to mount to the engine?
Originally posted by Abubaca Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how I'd do it yet. I haven't got in there to look at it, but I'm sure something could be figured out without too much effort.
...and as far as the stock brackets....on the passenger side especially, where does the bracket mount to the motor? Could you cut off the tensioner/AC portion all together, and still be able to attach it to the engine? You'd want to sand and smooth, and maybe powdercoat it, but would it still be able to mount to the engine?
How about this idea?
Talk about clean engine bay!
i had somting KINDA like that with my 82..
the alt was mounted really low on the pass side, and one V belt ran around the alt, WP and crank, and a 2nd belt ran the PS pump.
the prob i see with your design there is that the waterpump would probly slip... a idler pully could solve that though by holding more surface area of the belt on the pump..
You'd need to move the alternator or PS up higher to get enough belt/pulley coverage on the WP pulley or there would be belt slippage in high load situations. There are enough hot rod shops around that make pullies and brackets for very clean installations that just about any combination would be possible.
Originally posted by Abubaca Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how I'd do it yet. I haven't got in there to look at it, but I'm sure something could be figured out without too much effort.
...and as far as the stock brackets....on the passenger side especially, where does the bracket mount to the motor? Could you cut off the tensioner/AC portion all together, and still be able to attach it to the engine? You'd want to sand and smooth, and maybe powdercoat it, but would it still be able to mount to the engine?
How about this idea?
Talk about clean engine bay!
Funny you should make a thread about this, I just got doing the same setup yesterday using the stock passenger side bracket that I cut and a March heim joint setup to apply tension. When I get home from work tonight I'll post pics.
I'm aware of the possibility of the belt slipping on the water pump but it looks like it'll be okay. The alternator is mounted high enough on the head that an idler pulley might not be necessary. I haven't run the car yet but I'll let you know how it works out.
Originally posted by IROCZZ3 Funny you should make a thread about this, I just got doing the same setup yesterday using the stock passenger side bracket that I cut and a March heim joint setup to apply tension. When I get home from work tonight I'll post pics.
I'm aware of the possibility of the belt slipping on the water pump but it looks like it'll be okay. The alternator is mounted high enough on the head that an idler pulley might not be necessary. I haven't run the car yet but I'll let you know how it works out.
:lala: You rock. Deff. Post pic's
I have a motor on a motor stand and some brackets wating to be hacked and powdercoated.
I've got about 1/4 of the pulley of a 'contact patch' with the ribbed side of the belt on... *ahem* ummm... a different car, and belt slip isnt a problem. The water pump pulley size is comparable. I rev that thing to about 65-6700 so... I'd think it would be ok on most cars.
As far as contact on the water pump, regardless of what's enough contact, and what isn't, don't go by my diagrams, they're not to proportion...and if they are, it's merely by chance!
Iroc ZZ3: YES, please post pics!!!!!
In case it's not blatantly obvious by now, I want my engine bay as clean as possible. I'm even thinking about building up more armstrength, and removing the PS pump.(Not really )
As far as a custom set-up is concerned, what kind of price are we looking at? I saw a set-up from March for aroung $1500. That's a LOT more than I'm gonna spend on making a CLEAN engine bay. Crank WP and PS are all gonna stay, I'd just need to get that alternator down there low on the pass. side. I don't want a huge empty stock bracket hangin' all over the place though, so I was thinking about a custom bracket. Any ballpark on a price?
Did anyone pick up on one of my earlier questions? Can you cut the AC and tensioner portions off of the stock bracket and still be able to mount the alternator in the stock smog location, and more importantly, still have enough mounting spots left over from the hacked up bracket to mount it to the motor? Did that make sense?
also for the water pump, just get the new electric pump for tpi cars i think by metzier or something, then the pulley is just a free spinning wheel. solves that problem of slippage.
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Overall shot...to mount the alternator to the head I used the existing long bolt that mounted the passenger side bracket to the head. I bought some spacer stock from Home Depot and cut a 3 1/4" piece off and used that as the spacer to mount the thick lugged end to the head. Belt alignment is perfect.
I might try to find a longer bolt to mount the alternator to the head. The old one seems to have adequate thread engagement, but I feel it could use a longer bolt. And of course you'll need to extend your alternator wires.
To mount the other side of the alternator see next post.
It's hard to see in this one, but I cut the passenger side AC bracket above the 2 holes where it would mount to the block. I then sanded the part of the bracket where I cut it and painted it. In the future I will smooth it out some more and get it powdercoated.
To adjust tension I used a March tensioner rod (Summit part # MCH-RA2-500, $40.69), mounted as shown.
One thing I did, but isn't really necessary, is cut off the old alternator mount lugs and grind and sand them smooth. Again I will get this powdercoated as soon as I know this setup works good or not.
You can also see the part # for the belt that I used. I got it at Napa and it's supposed to be a 6-rib, 56 1/2" belt.
That's AWESOME!!!:hail: different means to the same end, but you've actually done it!!! NICE!!! What did you cut the bracket with? Were the tensioner and the spacer the only hardware you bought...everything else was existing?
I used an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel, cuts through really easy.
The tensioner and spacer were the only things I bought but like I said earlier I may get a longer mount bolt and/or fabricate a bracket to support the other of the alternator if the whole thing flexes under load...right now as it sits it's solid as a rock. I'll find out tomorrow when I get it running.
The contact on the WP is definetly lacking, and this is using a STOCK crank pully.... but I tell ya what... when I put the pedal down, the slippage across the WP gives me what feels like 20 HP.
I expect it to fail at some point, I keep a close eye on the temp guage and I have a spare belt... I'm not skeetred. I have a gator-belt on there and it seems to be doing well so far. This belt is 50.5 inches long, and allwed me to remove the 20-LB passenger's accessory bracket.
That might be OK, as long as you don't run WOT all the time, and you keep your eye on the temp. Since the belt is slipping due to lack of friction, that lack of friction may be what causing the belt to last you so long as well. Too bad you can't underdrive the WP at WOT and OVERdrive it the rest of the time
I called March today and they do NOT have a PS brakcet for our cars. I was hoping to to completely remove all the OEM brakcets and run with TPI383's belt routing. I'm not against modding the bracket like TP383, but a trick shiny pre-fabbed billet bracket for the PS would be cool, and probably worth about $90 bucks. March did have a few cost effective set-ups, similar to TPI383, but when you take into account the time to swap and reroute all the pulleys and pumps etc. , it's just worth the time to give the PS bracket a little TLC.
By the way TPI383, what colot powdercoat where ya thinking? J/C
Originally posted by MrDude_1 so have any of you figured out the real challenge yet?
you know... mounting everything low and clean, and still having AC......
mmm... I used to have a Pa-x ton SC on my Iroc, the stainless steel plate relocated the ALT down low, below the PS, (it got wet easily). the plate was flat, and replaced the driver's bracket. the SC was then mounted high on the driver's side.
If we can do that, leave out the SC, and then mount the A/C where the A.I.R. pump is, we'd have it. Relocating the A/C would involve some hard-line replacement.
I have an engineering diagram of that pa-x ton plate somewhere if anyone has a 3/16" piece of stainless steel plate and a band-saw capable of cutting it It might be easier to just rig something up to attach onto the existing drivers-side accessory bracket and put the alt way low.
I want the A.I.R. pump working too.... maybe that can be replaced with an electric air pump.
My general goal is to sacrifice whatever E.T. it takes and return the engine compartment to stock appearing, including LTR-TPI, A.I.R., and A/C so I won't be persuing the clean look... but I like what is done above with the stuff down low too! nice job.
Ok, got the car running finally. Overall it works out very well with NO belt slippage at all, even with 6500 rpm shifts
My only one concern is I may need to brace the alternator a little better. At idle in Park the alternator vibrates just a hair, but when you rev it up it smooths out and doesn't vibrate. I'll probably run a rear brace from the threaded hole on the back of the alternator to the #2 header bolt....just like the brace used when the alt was on the driver's side.
Yes. The super ultra schnazzy system is what IROCZZ3 is running!!! -or whatever ya wanna call it!
IROCZZ3: Great to hear it works!!! I'm gonna go with that set-up too. That's got the least amount of un-needed crap!!! I've been studying my engine for the last few days, and I too was wondering about that extra brace. I'm glad to hear that you're thinking about that also. -Good work!:hail:
Originally posted by IROCZZ3 Ok, got the car running finally. Overall it works out very well with NO belt slippage at all, even with 6500 rpm shifts
My only one concern is I may need to brace the alternator a little better. At idle in Park the alternator vibrates just a hair, but when you rev it up it smooths out and doesn't vibrate. I'll probably run a rear brace from the threaded hole on the back of the alternator to the #2 header bolt....just like the brace used when the alt was on the driver's side.
i can tell you from experiance.. if the alt is bouncing around at all, it will eventually fail.
You ran the tensioner/brace from the alternator to the smog pump bracket right? That means you cut down both OE brackets? Pass and driver side? It doesn't look like there's anything else that low to bolt it to.
MrDude_1- I totally agree with you, the last thing I need is to have my alternator fall off when I'm driving.
Abubaca- The tensioner is mounted on the smog pump part of the bracket. Yup, I cut down both brackets but the driver's side isn't necessary to do. I just did it to make it look cleaner.
When I figure out how to brace the alternator better I'll post the results again.
I went to the strip yesterday, I dropped 0.4 sec off my low ET, and the changes I made were the serpentine modification I posted above, a battery that is 10 lbs lighter than the one I used to have, and the air was really good compared to the 12.80 I ran this summer, and compared to the mild day earlier this spring when I ran a 12.56... and I used a colder plug.
I'll dyno the stock routing, and my "barely touch the WP" routing sometime. I imagine the slippage on the WP is responsible for SOME hp... I saw NO ill effects on cooling at all...the run is over in 12.08 seconds, after all
OH!, I forgot, I modded my stock intake-tube... I wonder what that was worth?? geeze I hope that was all the gain, since I'm putting the stock belt system back on.
That's a full-on 4-inch exhaust pipe shoved in there to keep it from collapsing under the vacuum of WOT (and don't tell me theres no vacuum at WOT... I had some.... still do.)
Originally posted by Lumberg mmm... I used to have a Pa-x ton SC on my Iroc, the stainless steel plate relocated the ALT down low, below the PS, (it got wet easily). the plate was flat, and replaced the driver's bracket. the SC was then mounted high on the driver's side.
If we can do that, leave out the SC, and then mount the A/C where the A.I.R. pump is, we'd have it. Relocating the A/C would involve some hard-line replacement.
I have an engineering diagram of that pa-x ton plate somewhere if anyone has a 3/16" piece of stainless steel plate and a band-saw capable of cutting it It might be easier to just rig something up to attach onto the existing drivers-side accessory bracket and put the alt way low.
I want the A.I.R. pump working too.... maybe that can be replaced with an electric air pump.
My general goal is to sacrifice whatever E.T. it takes and return the engine compartment to stock appearing, including LTR-TPI, A.I.R., and A/C so I won't be persuing the clean look... but I like what is done above with the stuff down low too! nice job.
My old Paxton Bracket. Pic.
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anyone figure out a way to get rid of the 2 acc. brackets all togheter and still run the alt, PS pump and WP with a serp. belt. I am trying to find a way to do this. some options I am thinking of are using an electric water pump and then just figuring out how to run the other 3 pullies or run all 4 pullies and put the alt down low and out of the way. Anyone have any suggestions? my setup now is the 2nd diagram
I know this thread is old, but it has both enlightened and inspired me to change my setup. My old setup had A/C and smog on the left (looking at the motor from the front), and Paxton, power steering, and alternator on the right. I'm changing it to alt and smog on the left (I removed A/C), and Paxton and power steering on the right. Two reasons for doing this,, never liked the alt that low, and the belt never seemed to be quite in alignment. So,, thanks to you guys, here's what I have so far, the right side comes tonight. And tonight is here,, so here's both sides.
im going to try it soon as i get around to it...
or maybe wait until i can run the car, re route, and then run the car again back to back, so we can get some track times to show an improvement (Doubful, but worth a try, right?)
I think i will have to do the reverse belt tensioner thing for this to work?
Last edited by Adrenaline; 06-17-2004 at 09:18 PM.
Are there any benifits to that compared to my diagram?
I just am lazy, and want the least work possible, no moving anything, just buy a new belt. seems easier to me... expesually with the tensioner still there, i dont have to adjust anything.
And I modified it as seen below. Basically I drilled an extra hole to mount an idler pulley from an old tensioner I had laying around from a 98 Tahoe. This gives it more contact around the water pump pulley. I used some thick washers to align the pulley with the rest of the pulleys.
I also had to trim the 2 spacers that mount between the bracket and water pump with a tubing cutter for proper alignment. I used the large spacer between the head and alternator as a guide to trim the 2 smaller spacers.
I'm pretty sure it's OK though.
serpentine was spelled wrong.
