Im having a pretty hard time getting this belt on i know quite a few of you have installed a whipple kit any suggestions or tips. Iv been trying to get the water pump pulley last but even that is really really tight.
So I just did this install over the past weekend. I'd set the idler pulley to its middle position or slightly more on the right side. Then start looping the belt through (I started from the bottom, and worked up to the supercharger pulley). Put a ratchet, preferably a long breaker bar on the tensioner and move it to the right to give you enough slack to loop it around the final pulley. When you release the tensioner, it should not bottom out, or hold at its max position.
Makes sense. It's just that since my tensioner was set to about 60% - 70% of its travel, I had plenty of slack to easily get it over that top ribbed pulley.
I put a half inch breaker bar on the tensioner and rotate it clockwise as far as it will go and hold it there, and there is endless slack to get the belt on at this point regardless of the manual tensioner position.
Yeah, there is tons of slack, but when you relax the breaker bar, you don't want the tensioner to bottom out or stay locked at its max clockwise position. That's why I mentioned the adjustable idler pulley. It kind of sets the tensioner's limits while the belt is on.
But, yeah I did it the same way as you, phunk, and there was tons of slack to get it onto a ribbed pulley.