I'm getting closer and closer to getting the coupe on the road and have run into a few minor issues. One of them is that there's not a lot of belt to pully surface area on the water pump (see crappy pick below I took for a hose issue I had). You can see in the upper left part of the pic where the belt rolls over the pulley to the crank pulley, with about an inch of surface area. I don't want to have it slip on high revs, etc. and am going to run a longer belt and idler, pushing down from the top between the pump and generator. What are you guys using? Is there a narrow, smooth idler that doesn't look like it came off a ricer? Any help is appreciated. Thanks. Jonny
My experience was that belts didn't hold up well. Some belts only lasted a whole 50 miles. Can you possibly mount the alternator lower? The other thing is, for all you know at this time it might work out OK
I just went to NAPA today and purchased one for a belt setup on a 56 Olds 324. It sounds exactly like what you are looking for. Their catalog is full of idler/tensioner pulleys. You may have to fab a bracket to hold it, but thats the easy part.
It may be fine and it seems like it's spinning ok when I tach it up, but I really don't want to run the risk of underdriving it and sacrificing cooling. I would mount the generator lower, but there's really no place else to put it. The 413 is pretty large, especially w/ headers. The oil pump is on the driver's side and the fuel pump is on the other, so I cant mount it below the exhaust line. I had a longer belt at one point and rotated the generator out over the drivers valve cover as far as I could, but I didn't really gain any substantial surface area on the pulley. It also looked kind of crappy hanging out so far and the oil hole was too sideways for my liking. Eventually, this mill will run long ram intake manifolds, so I had to take that into consideration to in regards to placement. I think the idler is the only way to go. I'm curious about the busted belts that phat rat was mentioning. Maybe the spring was too powerful..? I will check with NAPA and my local store which seems to have everything I ever ask for. I'll see what they offer. Thanks guys. Jonny
I'm not going to run mine under spring tension. In my application, I'm only looking for more belt wrap at the water pump. Running a stationary adjustable idler should do that for me
Johnny I did it the same way as MercDueceMan. I run air and ps so I had 3 belts. The idler had the belt bending at almost a 90 degree angle so that I had a lot of surface contact. One ran the alt.and water pump, one for the ps and one off the water pump for the air. Had slippage so I tried the idler pulley way had a lot of trouble with that. Finally I went to one for the water pump and alt and one that runs air and ps. The one for the air and ps is around 55" long but it's been on there for over 30,000 mi.
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