hi,
well i have a little problem with my power steering pump bracket,i had ac,and im not putting it back on because of my headers,i dont know how i would be able to make it work right,so my question is,does the sepentine belt setup mount to the header bolts like mine did?i have a 4 z,had l69 with ac,and the one bracket,went on the two front header bolts,that held up the ac crap,i would like to have ac,thats really the only reason im asking,because if i have to go serpentine i want to hurry up and buy a setup,ones going through ebay right now,thanks for your time,pics of the right and left front of engine,would help a lot,thanks for your time,

p.s. if any one has a custom setup with v belts,please let me know how you did it,i dont know how to setup the power steering without setting up my ac,thanks alot.
phil

 

Yes and no. For serpentine, there are 2 big aluminum brackets that mount on the front of the engine, then 2 metal bars which each go from an accessory to and exhaust manifold. One goes on the passenger side from the back of the A/C compressor to the exhaust manifold, then the other goes from the back of the alternator on the drivers side to the manifold. I am not using either of these bars, and My setup is working just fine. You should not have any problems if you don't use them.

 

It's not worth it changing over to the serpentine setup. You will need all new accessories, including a reverse rotation water pump, brackets, hardware, etc. You can modify that one bracket that bolts to the header. Your location says Cumberland... is that Cumberland MD by any chance? If so, I could show you how I did mine...

 

I changed my car over to serpentine with all junkyard accessories and brackets except the water pump, which was $16 at autozone. I could immediately tell a difference when the engine revs, it revs faster and much much smoother. Plus it just looks cool to have a serpentine carbed engine

 

Sure it is. The lack of belts squealing and getting tossed was completely worth it to me.

 

Belt squeal is caused by worn belts or improper tension. Throwing the belts at high RPM is caused by the same thing. Misalignment of pullies can cause it too, but most likely the other 2. There is no inherent design flaw in the v belt setup. You can run them at high RPM all day long with no problems as long as you have everything right.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there any performance advantage NASCAR would use it. They run v-belts like MANY other race cars. They run up to and sometimes over 9000RPM. I never hear of any problems with them...

 

the advanatage i see, is when doing that damn PS belt on v-belt. OMG that is a PITA. taking off all the belts to get to that one. the serpentine setup make changing belts....i mean belt so freaking easy. i love it.

 

Nascars also only have one accessory, an alternator. If they had 4 like our cars, they probably would run serpentine. My car came with the early serpentine system which consists of 5 freaking belts. Serpentine is much easier to work with, because you just take one belt off and all your accessories are ready to come out. Maybe its just my engine, but my old v belt brackets were a complete PITA to get everything lined up. Not to mention when you take off all the brackets and accessories, its a jogsaw puzzle to figure out where everything went. These are just opinions but there is one fact which makes serpentine better. Serpentine setups have less friction than v-belt setups due to the fact that the belt only grabs the outside of the pulled, and doesn't slide across the sides of the v-belt pulley grooves. I would be willing to bet that if you take 2 identical engines, one with serpentine, one with v-belt, that the v-belt would make a few more hp.

"If you want ten more horsepower, find ten places to get one horsepower."

 

To answer the original post...

There's a bracket that slips onto the two front exhaust manifold bolts. This bracket also bolts to the bracket on the front of the engine that holds the power steering pump, letting you adjust the tension.

To keep this setup is simple...

Take the bracket with the two "legs" ( the one that bolts to the exhaust manifold bolts ) and simply cut the bottom of each "leg" off, so it still has some area left where the bolt goes. Now it will just slip over the bolts.

Reuse the studs with the threads on the end ( the bracket was held in by two nuts that go on the end of these studs ).

You'll need to make up a spacer to slip over the front part of the stud since the headers is alot thinner than the original exhaust manifold... A small piece of pipe cut to length works / looks fine.

It's not as hard as it sounds...I've done this on damn near every GM that I've installed headers on that had AC And V-Belts.


ALSO..to the guy with the serpentine conversion who's NOT using the two braces...

BEWARE...the bracket on the front of the engine are aluminum, and with the weight / stress of all the accessories, they will twist / move. I've seen several broken brackets from people not installing the braces back on.

ALSO.. almost every company that makes a new / replacment alternator for the serpentine setup has a warning that their warranty on the alternator is null and void if these braces aren't being used.

GM engineer put them there for a reason I assure you. Think about it this way.. we all know how cheap car companies are, why would they had something extra if it didn't need it?

SLP even has spacer for reusing these braces with their headers...


HTH

 

Do some research man...

ALL NASCAR's run an alternator, water pump, and power steering pump.

A few other circle track cars run all of the above including a crankcase evac pump - on v belts.

 

Belt squeal is caused by worn belts or improper tension. Throwing the belts at high RPM is caused by the same thing. Misalignment of pullies can cause it too, but most likely the other 2. There is no inherent design flaw in the v belt setup. You can run them at high RPM all day long with no problems as long as you have everything right.

I would beg to differ on your comment that there is no inherent design flaw in (most) v-belt systems.

First off, to me a system isn't "truly" serpentine unless it utilizes flat, multi-ribbed belts and tensioner(s). The 88-92 thirdgen system uses a single belt and a tensioner, the LS1 setup uses two separate belts with a tensioner on each. Both are serpentine. The 85-87 setup is not serpentine--it uses three v-belts and one flat ribbed belt (on the alternator)

Let's look at what happens when you simply change a v-belt to a flat ribbed belt. First, the belt has for more surface area where it contacts the accessory pulley. This extra surface are provides better friction with the belt. This improved friction, in turn, requires less tension to keep the belt turning the accessory. This probably translates into longer belt life (less stretching). In addition, you have less force on the bearings internal to an accessory. This translates to longer accessory life. The belt itself is usually far more flexible than a v-belt, allowing it to make tighter turns without as much fatigue on the belt material.

I can't count the number of old cars I've seen with squealing pulleys, and I'd say probably 65% of those at least were the alternator pulley (with 30% being the A/C pulley and the remainder being PS, AIR, or some other pulley). Apparently, GM noticed the problem of squealing alternator pulleys too, which is why they went to a ribbed belt on the alternator in the later v-belt systems. The A/C is a special case, of course, because the load cycles--a problem in the v-belt system. The multiple accessories and tensioner help dampen the "spike" from the load turning on and off far better than a single belt can do.

Second, both pulleys have multiple grooves in them which match the ribs on the belt in addition to the "shoulders" of the pulley which are square (unlike v-belts, which have v-shaped grooves). Both of those do a superior job of preventing belt "jump" than the standard "smooth" v-belt. Of course, if the shoulder is too low, the belt CAN and WILL jump; this is a known problem with the LS1 idler pulley.

Of course, you still can have alignment and tension problems, as this is basically a v-belt setup with a different type of belt. That's another inherent flaw in the v-belt setup on the small block chevy, at least: Too damn many pieces, all of which have to be perfectly aligned. If one is damaged, bent, or spaced wrong, you get squeal and/or belt jumping. The more pieces you have to screw up with, the more often that at least ONE will be.

Hell, even changing v-belts is a royal pain in the ***. If the back belt breaks, you have to take ALL the belts off to change it. Getting those belts around a mechanical fan can be an exercise in contortionism, not to mention frustation at trying to find enough hands to tension the belt AND tighten enough adjustment bolts to get it to hold the tension. And we won't even mention what a royal pain in the damn butt it is to tension the power steering pulley if you have A/C. And the joy of changing a water pump or doing a cam swap on an SBC with v-belts.

In a full serpentine system, it gets even better. A single belt drives all the accessories. A tensioner is designed to keep proper tension on the belt even as it stretches over time and as RPM increases. You get all the benefits of the ribbed belt mentioned above, plus 30 minute water pump changes, 3 minute belt changes, and never have to tension the belt(s) manually to keep them from squealing. In the case of the thirdgen, in addition the damn brackets are made out of cast aluminum. I don't know if they weight more or less than the steel v-belt brackets (I imagine it's close either way due to the bulkiness of the serp brackets), but there's only two of them and they don't rust.

If after all this, you still can't see how serpentine systems are inherently superior, I'm going to be a bit surprised. Sure, I've run into v-belt setups that work ok. The one in my Olds, in particular, seems to behave, but it has several brackets on it that are cast aluminum like the thirdgen serpentine system. And it still likes to squeal the first time you turn on the A/C. But the vast majority of them seem to suffer from chronic belt squealing and tossing problem, and even if that isn't inherently the fault of the v-belt system, the difficulty of actually getting them RIGHT is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there any performance advantage NASCAR would use it. They run v-belts like MANY other race cars. They run up to and sometimes over 9000RPM. I never hear of any problems with them...

The idea that we should pay any attention to what they do in NASCAR is unbelievably laughable. The way we use our cars is so completely different that it might as well be in another universe. NASCAR doesn't car about belt life, or accessory life, or air conditioning, or any of the many other factors that influence how our street cars are built and modified. I'd like to see someone drive a NASCAR car back and forth to work for a month and see how it holds up. Heck, if you buy that explanation, we should all run carburetors and restrictor plates, because if NASCAR uses them, they must be THE best, most advanced way of doing things.

As far as horsepower difference, I'd imagine it's pretty close between the two. I'm not foolish enough to think that I'm going to magically find power by changing belt systems--only increase reliability and ease of service. And that's worth it to me.

 

99Hawk120 - Well maybe my personal experiences are different. I've owned 2 cars with serp belts. Both squealed a little on cold start up - even with new belts and good tensioners.

I haven't changed my belts since the new engine - 4 YEARS AGO. Never threw a belt and never any noise. Its not something to brag about - not changing them - just stating my experience.

I have a clutch fan on my car. I GUARANTEE I can change all my belts as quick as any serp setup. I might even go time myself just for kicks.

I do however see a few advantages of the serp setup, as you explained earlier. But I don't see them being so great that I'd want to go out and waste my money converting.

And about the NASCAR thing... Agreed it may be extreme, but my point still stands. A v belt system IS capable of sustained high RPM. If it truly ran ANY risk of throwing a belt, they wouldn't hesistate to change over. I didn't see you argue that. Instead you made a poor comparison for daily driving.

 

Do you really think that you can? Do you have any belts without tensioners? If you do I'll bet you can't change your belts that quickly.

It takes me about 2 minutes to change the serpentine belt on my car. With a couple of practice runs, it could be done in 30 seconds. This is a car with alternator, smog pump, power steering, A/C and water pump on the belt, as well as having a non-electric fan.