swapping to serp belts?

[XFlow_Fairlane]

since I am going to be redoing some accesories in the coming months I was wondering about swapping to serp belts. the only hold up I see right now is the balancer. do you think I could turn it down on a lathe and sleeve it with a pulley off another car? maybe put a small spot weld in 3 or 4 places to hold it in place (would be a press fit anyway)? the other idea I had was to turn the stock pulley down until it was just a smooth sleeve over the rubber and then have a bolt on cover much like the AC pulley is. I got a full set of 2.3 ohc pulleys to play with and a spare 200 on hand so just looking for ideas.

 

[DaGr8Tim]

Another idea may be the crank pulley from a 2.3 HSC (Tempo/Topaz). Being as by most accounts, the 2.3 HSC is basically a 200 that is minus 2 cylinders, it may be closer out of the gate.

 

[Asa]

wouldn't the balancer from the 2.3 need to be zero balanced?

 

[Stubby]

All inline engines I have seen are neutral balance.

 

[Asa]

all inline sixes maybe, but a 2.3 is a 4-cyl

 

[Stubby]

Trust me on this. All inlines are neutral balance. I have been around engines all of my life and I built engines for fifteen tears.

 

[Asa]

i might not have been working on or building engines for 15 years, but i know that I4 engines are not balanced

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-4

The straight-4 engine is not a balanced configuration and while this is tolerable in a small, low-displacement, low-power configuration the vibrations get worse with increasing size and power. Most straight-4 engines below 2 litres in displacement rely on the damping effect of their engine mountings. Today most engineers will make use of balance shafts above that limit. A 4-cylinder engine needs two balance shafts, rotating at twice the crankshaft frequency, to be smooth.

 

[rbohm]

8) evan, think i see your problem here. while the 4 cylinder engines have a vibration problem, it is NOT due to the rotating assembly not being balanced. you have a few different types of vibration going on in any engine, and while certain types of vibrations are countered by using a V or flat configuration, that isnt true with 4 cylinder inline engines. the counter shafts of which they speak are there to keep the engine from vibrating from side to side and up and down. the rotating assembly has to be balanced otherwise you get a severe vibration that literaly shakes the engine apart, and destroys bearings and fun things like that. the vibration these guys are talking about is different.

 

[Lazy JW]

Four cylinder four stroke engines set up all sorts of nasty harmonic vibrations. Too many things happening in evenly divisible multiples. That's what is so nice about the three cylinder (half-six) arrangement. Things just cannot get in sync enough to set up those bad vibes. Four isn't divisible by three. But four divides into four quite readily. Even the much vaunted flat four VW is a nasty vibrator at speed. VW just hung a REALLY heavy flywheel on it to calm things down. Worked great until folks started hotrodding them. LOTS of bad things happened then.
Joe

 

[XFlow_Fairlane]

ok so I tried to put the 2.3L OHC water pump pully on today....JUST barely to large in diameter....gets started but the pulleys just barely kiss eachother....just taking .020" off the dampner would fix this problem. bolt pattern is the same as is the center hole size. so basicly this will just bolt right on it looks like.


so I went at the dampner again (these are a pain to pull with a short block laying on your living room floor btw) so I get it off and go to slide the 2.3L pulley up to see how the size is for it....and it slide on nice and ALMOST snug. so then the wheels started turning and I grabbed my calipers off the table.

The seal portion is the SAME SIZE (well within .005" with the 2.3L one being BIGGER) so maybe jsut a slight polish would take car of this.

the keyway looks to be nearly the same size too as is the center hole size....only it just won't press fit on there. the only REAL hangup is the 2.3L pulley is too short and will hit the timing cover before being anywhere near tightened. but this lack of length is all within the motor so a spacer sleeve should work fine on it. as the seal would be riding on the 2.3L pulley anyway.

so do you think I could heat part of the 2.3L hub with a torch read hot and it should shrink just a little when it cools right? or could I knurl the 2.3L pulley internally to make it a press fit? this really looks like it could be a near a bolt on deal!!! the worst case I see is modding the ALT bracket for/aft to get the pulleys lined up and the same on teh PS pump bracket (mine is bent and needs tweaked anyways)

the other option I am looking at is that the 2.3L pulley once cut off the crank pulley will fit ont he 200 pulley once it gets turned out and the two could be pressed together and tacked with a MIG in a could spots to holt it in place. I know this will weaken the rubber but then I could have it rebuilt by the dampner doctor into a nice new unit.


edit: I jsut put them both on and they barely interfer with eachother...but it looks like the stock PS bracket might even work (too bad mine is bent a little)

BTw the 2.3L crank pulley is rigid and has zero balance. it is a simple stamped steel rim welded to a central machined hub. pretty much like how they make a PS pulley

 

[Anonymous]

i got a complete alu belt driven setup , blower belt drive. not serpentine !

here is a little imagen from my drawings. the pully come,s over the orginal single balancer wheel pully , and for the altenator and water pump and power steering pomp are new aluminium polist wheels cnc milled !!

the belt is 40 M/M wihte , and a special made pully for guiding and tighten the compleet pully setup.

got the pully setup ready , and wil instal them this winter, just waiting for the alu radiator with intregated water intercooler ! for the turbo setup to finish.

 

[XFlow_Fairlane]

is there going to be enough clearance to slide that over a stock crank pulley and clear the water pump pulley? if you reduce the water pump pulley size to make it clear you will be over driving it and could run into caviation problems.

 

[Anonymous]

nope , i did redueze the size from the water pump pully , but np , because i got something like this inside the water pully .

this is only an imagen for how the model is , its not exact the same as is in the pump wright now.


didnt test it , i can only testing it when i got the whole setup in the car , so hopefully i,m getting not problems with cooling system , i got an alu cooler and electric fan , so i see not much problems .

in the future is an electric waterpump , temp sensoring and rpm sensoring .

 

[Billr57]

I like both,Belt drive and electric water pump idea..keep me posted on the progress.
Bill