I did a search and read a thread regarding this, but I wanted to know if there were any other benefits to running a serpentine setup besides smoothness and ease of replacement. I'm also aware that a V-belt setup would generally allow the engine to run, even if a belt breaks.

I have wanted to do the serpentine swap on my '86 IROC, but I still like my V-belts (don't ask me why... I just do ). I rarely see pro-street cars and show cars with a serpentine belt setup (unless they're blown), so obviously there must be some benefit if a lot of guys refuse to convert to the serpentine belt.

Any thoughts?

 

If anyone can answer his question, I have a quest too about belts. My 87 TA 305 TPI has both... There is a small serpentine type belt going around the crank and two other things i think. i cant remember which. maybe power steering. But then my AC belt, and my Alt. belt and I think maybe one more is a V-belt. Sorry I cant be more specific on what they go around, I really dont remember. Anyone else have this setup?? After you answer the first question, see if you can figure out mine. Thanks...

Justin

 

Ghetto, that's still a V-Belt, just a wider one. It drives the alternator. A serpentine setup means that there is one belt that drives every accessory. The width of the belt has nothing to do with it.

 

Actually it is a serpentine belt. It's not shaped like a 'v'. It's not a serpentine system, however, because the rest of the belts are v-belts.

I converted my 87 to serpentine because it looks cleaner, it's more maintainance-free, and when you do have to work on it, it's much easier to access. To get to the point, it's just more modern. No production cars use v-belts anymore.

 

Plus the serp system uses the tensioner to keep the belt at the proper tension.

 

I like my V belt set up because if one belt breaks, the water pump is still driven, if another belt breaks, the water pump is still driven. As someone who used to make fairly regular 1500 mile drives, it was peace of mind knowing that if any thing did go wrong, I could keep driving the car. And in fact something did go wrong once, the power steering pump bracket broke and the pump fell off the car and hung by its hoses. Being a V belt engine, the only thing I lost was power steering and was able to finish the drive. With a serp. setup this would have ended the trip right then, until I got the car fixed. And let me tell you, 2am in the middle of Nebraska, there is NOTHING open (or at least back in the mid 80's there wasn't).

 

My water pump is driven by the same belt as my alternator, but my power steering has its own belt.

 

The best reason to convert to serpentine is this. No one makes a power adder for a V-belt setup. I have looked everywhere. If I put a ATI procharger on my car or any other power adder that I have found I will need a serpentine setup. That's why I am going to do it. Also I have replaced all my V-belts. It's a pain in the @$$. If your going on a long trip you should check your car out before leaving. Your belts should be in good order. Also it's not a bad idea to carry the simple yet critical misc. parts with you as they are usually cheap to get. Best of all most of them would fit in your driver side lockbox. That's my $0.02.

 

Another reason is horsepower loss. I've read somewhere that you lose 5hp for each V belt.. whether the accessory is using any power or not. Even if the serpentine belt used slightly more(doubtful) you would only be counting losses for 1 belt, not 4 like my 87 has.

 

I kept throwing my V-belts at 6G's. This get old, and not to say bad for my water pump bearing when the belt raps up around it.
My solution was a March Performance conversion.
Havn't thrown any belts since, and the pulley are perfectly square...

Ron

 

Wow, great replies so far. I don't think that I'd ever put a power adder on my Camaro, so a serpentine setup wouldn't really help me there. Ron, I really like the way that your belts look -- are those basically wider pulleys to drive a wider belt, thus reducing the chances that it would break or fly off? How much was that entire setup?

 

Myth. You are running the same number of accessories with a serpentine as with the V belt setup, those are what "robs power" from the engine.

 

What he said above, the belt's don't cause the hp loss. To be a 'serpentine' system, one or more pully's needs to be run on the back of the belt. How the belt 'snakes' around is where it gets it's name. I see no benefit for running an old v-belt config if they are working correctly--which is why you probably see alot of older cars still using them. Mine are still v-belt and I have no reason to change to a serpentine system. As far as the 'if only one belt breaks I can still drive' if you have v-belts isn't usually the case. The broken belt ends up taking out the rest of the belts with it.

"And let me tell you, 2am in the middle of Nebraska, there is NOTHING open (or at least back in the mid 80's there wasn't)."
Still that way. Might find a 24 hour gas station open and a place to stay in the bigger cities. In rural Nebraska, the shops close at 5-6:00(we sleep at night), and they probably wouldn't carry the serp. belt you need. They do carry every v-belt you could imagine.

 

One thing to note about the serpentine systems is that your power steering bracket can't just "break." There aren't single brackets, there is one large piece of aluminum(actually two, one on each head) that the accessories bolt to. If I'm driving down the street and my belt breaks, I've got the backup one on within 5 minutes. It's just that easy.

 

One would have thought the same thing about the steel bracket that was there from the factory too. Chit happens.

 

Was it rusty?

 

I beleive that the friction loss was said to be due to the depth of the v-belt.. This causes sliding friction as it moves into and out of the pulley. A v-belt 3/8" thick would have alot more friction loss than a flat belt 1/8" thick. Even with the multiple ribs on the flat belt, I bet the friction loss isn't much more than a single V-belt. Maybe theres and actual engineer in here somewhere that has some experience? As far as I know car manufacturers wouldnt be using serpentine belts if they didnt have a performance/economy benefit. Manufacturers could care less if you can actually work on something, so dont beleive they changed just cause its easier to change the belt.

 

It is a cheaper system and allows them to put the engines in ever smaller cars.

 

rezinn... Thanks for clearing up my belt question. How difficult is it to change over to serpentine? My v-belts work good, but some of the pulleys arent squared. For example my AC belt squeaks cuz it keeps getting out of line somehow. The argument about if you break a v-belt your motor will still run is a good one. But, a serp belt goes on so easy. All you need is one single wrench to get the new one on. I always keep a spare belt in my car. Besides, changing v-belts is such a pain. You have to loosen bolts and move parts, then re-bolt and pry on parts etc. So what does it take to swap? how many parts? How difficult? How much money? Let me know. I need a summer project to go with polishing the TPI.

Justin

 

heh no, the car was less than a year old and never saw salty roads. The metal the bracket was made from had a flaw. Just because a serpentine system uses one large bracket per side of the engine really means nothing, it can break.

 

Hey 'blue86iroc' my belts are over the shelf 6 rib serpentine belts...
The pulleys are March Performance (Which basically makes up the conversion) 6 rib wide, and made of T6 aluminum.
The cost is about $190 for the alt, water, & crank pulley.
The power steering pulley cost $72 bucks.

Summit Part #
MCH-6380 <- High water flow version of the alt/wtr/crk set.
MCH-624 <- PS Pulley is a seperate part #

No more belt throwEY , & hey they look great, and weigh half that of the steel pulleys.

Ron

 

Very easy swap. Removing the v-belt crap is more difficult than putting the serpentine system on. Just remember this, FIND THE HARDWARE FROM THE DONOR CAR. Can't stress that enough. I ordered the parts from ta creations or something in florida. I forget the cost, but you could look it up. I want to say somewhere around $200 for the accessories, hardware(wrong hardware, heh), and the brackets to mount it. It came in two big boxes, and shipping took like three weeks.

One problem you'll run into is that the a/c and alternator swap positions, so you'll have to extend the alternator wiring. No big deal really. You'll also need the a/c hose from the donor car, which does come in the ta creations set. It's basically everything you need, except they sent me the wrong hardware to actually bolt it to the heads. I got some huge bolts instead of the actual studs that you're supposed to use.

 

chevymad is correct
serpentine belts create less friction, thus makin more power
asltough the diss advantage of a serptine belt is that u can't remoe one acces. with the removal of the bet.

with the v-belt u can take of the belt to the a/c and power steering for reduced ets

but if u wanna run all ur acces. get the serptine belt setup
easy to change the belt
looks alot neater
more power

 

I like the V-belts. They are way cheaper, cheaper pullies too, the setup is much lighter, and I think you get more power with v-belts.... less rotating weight & less belt tension as RPM's go up due to centrifugal force.

 

I think if I do a belt conversion, it would be using those March pulleys that ronterry showed us... one more question for you, Ron. Does March have a smog pump pulley available? I'd like to keep that if I could (emissions, ugh).

 

Hey 'blue86iroc', No I don't think they carry an Air Pump pulley, however you might give them a call. They might have GM part numbers that can be used with there sets, or they might have one in stock. Anyways, I'm sure they'll have a solution for you.
Let us know what they say!

http://www.marchperf.com
TEL: (734) 729-9070 • FAX: (734) 729-9075 • EMAIL: info@marchperf.com

Ron

 

Dangerous logic there. Sure, if you just happen to break a belt you can throw on a spare and be on your way in minutes. However, a broken belt as a cause/problem in and of itself is not usually what you're going to get.

Murphy's law would stipulate that if you're running the interstate at 3am in a rural county, odds are, an accessory will freeze up on you, whether it be the alternator, AC compressor, or power steering pump. All can and do decide to lock up. If you have a V-belt setup, all is not lost, just skip the offending accessory.

 

True. But there's always a danger in something breaking. In a v-belt system you know you're not going far if your alternator or water pump fail.. perhaps farther than with a serpentine system, though.

Potential accessory failures shouldn't keep you from changing systems if you want to. For me it was relatively cheap at the time and I like how it's rather maintainance free. As far as accessories failing, normally there would be some sort of warning. I've never had anything just die on me because I take care of it when it starts leaking or making noise. And if you pay enough attention, you can prevent the 3am situation. But yes, some things are out of our control and 3am rural breakdowns are inevitable. For me that isn't really an issue, though. And so I changed to serpentine.

 

I think the stock serpentine setups are better than the stock V-belt setups, simply because of how easy it makes things to work on.

However from an aftermarket setup point of view, both Vbelt and serpentine are high quality setups and both have their looks and pros and cons. its a toss up, should be application dictated.

example: if you know you want to run a decently big roots blower you know you cannot use a serpentine setup.

or if you know you want to run a centrifugal setup you know you want a serpentine setup.

 

Hey rezinn... do you remember where you got your kit from? You mentioned it came with the wrong hardware, but did you eventually recieve the right hardware? In other words, are you using the kit now? Or did you ditch it and go with a donor car? If it was around 200 bucks I would rather just order everything I need from them and skip digging through the junk yards. Let me know if you come up with the website or email address to the place you got the kit from.

Thanks,
Justin

 

I think it was called "trans am creations." Try http://www.tacreationsusa.com/

Most of the hardware was correct, but the studs that bolt the accessory brackets to the heads were missing, and some huge torx bolts were there to replace them.

I ordered it a couple years ago, so I'm not sure if they still carry it or not. All of the accessories worked fine when I got it. Just had a few wrong bolts.