Whipple belt chirp

Can anyone that has the 10 rib set up post up a pic from the passenger side to show the alignment of the belt running over the idler as opposed to the water pump pulley as in the pic below ? Thanks

pro 5.0 said:

Does your belt walk fore and aft when the car is running ? and when you look from the passenger side does the belt run parallel to the water pump ? If you have 3 idlers above the tensioner and the belt is riding at the back on 1 and riding forward or in the middle on the others there is an alignment issue. Curious how long you have been running the car with that alignment issue, you said you snapped a belt have you determined why that happened ?

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The belt runs true, no wandering. Alignment looks much better then it did, seems to be parallel to the dampener and water pump but really hard to tell by eyeballing it, and too sick to mess with it today. Broke the belt after only 150 miles while doing a fairly violent third gear acceleration and immediate deceleration. Not sure why but the belt must of come off of a pulley and got caught up on something.

None of these issues are instilling confidence in my up coming Whipple purchase. Seems they're becoming more apparent. What gives?

agrump said:

The belt runs true, no wandering. Alignment looks much better then it did, seems to be parallel to the dampener and water pump but really hard to tell by eyeballing it, and too sick to mess with it today. Broke the belt after only 150 miles while doing a fairly violent third gear acceleration and immediate deceleration. Not sure why but the belt must of come off of a pulley and got caught up on something.

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Doesn't matter if you blew the tires off in 2 nd 3 rd or 4 th gear the belt should not fray or break unless there is an alignment issue or a bolt came loose and contacted the belt. IMO if you can't do a third gear WOT pull without having a belt issue the car isn't worth having.

4orceFed said:

None of these issues are instilling confidence in my up coming Whipple purchase. Seems they're becoming more apparent. What gives?

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I honestly don't know what gives some people say they have issues and others don't. From the people that aren't having problems post up a pic of your belt alignment let's see if it runs parallel and if the belts rides on all 3 idlers in the same spot like it should. There is no way my car is a 1 off others must have the same alignment problem I have they just aren't noticing it. In order for this problem to be solved we need more input from the end user to actually find the source of the problem and fix this damn thing.

pro 5.0 said:

I used the supplied hardware as you can't use the old spacer anyways it's too long. I will go home tonight and take it all apart an measure some things out, the only change was the tensioner and now the belt is riding forward 1 rib ? Don't take this as a negative I just wanted to know if anyone else has tried it out yet, I will let you know what I find thanks.

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Many have run this tensioner now including plenty here. This tensioner has dual angular bearings so it has no slop from side to side, it travels true. Therefore if it jumps forward, something is off in alignment. If the spacer is .390" and pulley is not damaged in some way (bearing movement, etc), then I would suggest putting a washer or .070" spacer between the SC inlet and idler plate where they tie together. This would space the top of the idler plate out at the top and change the angle. This has worked on a few with the old tensioner that did the same thing.

The current idler plate is NOT adjustable so depending on the timing cover and water pump castings you may end up with a less than ideal alignment.
We need a simple tool to line everything up and then know what needs shimming.

The short runs between touches of the belt also magnify any misalignment issues.

I use laser alignment tools whenever I service pulley/belt driven equipment at my power plant.

Has anyone ever tried using a laser alignment tool to see exactly how 'in spec' their Whipple pulley is?

pro 5.0 said:

Can anyone that has the 10 rib set up post up a pic from the passenger side to show the alignment of the belt running over the idler as opposed to the water pump pulley as in the pic below ? Thanks

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Alignment is the same whether its 6 or 10.

sigintel said:

The current idler plate is NOT adjustable so depending on the timing cover and water pump castings you may end up with a less than ideal alignment.
We need a simple tool to line everything up and then know what needs shimming.

The short runs between touches of the belt also magnify any misalignment issues.

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Ford's die casting holds a tolerance of .01", because there is 5 mounting points, it is nearly impossible for that to be the issue. Its normally in the alternator and water pump.

The tensioner takes care of all belt noise and does not rock if there is misalignment.

4orceFed said:

None of these issues are instilling confidence in my up coming Whipple purchase. Seems they're becoming more apparent. What gives?

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We have more SC's out there then anyone else, the noise started to pop up overtime in some units. The new billet tensioner resolves all belt noises and all kits shipping now include the billet tensioner. This new part eliminates all possible tensioner issues.

pro 5.0 said:

I honestly don't know what gives some people say they have issues and others don't. From the people that aren't having problems post up a pic of your belt alignment let's see if it runs parallel and if the belts rides on all 3 idlers in the same spot like it should. There is no way my car is a 1 off others must have the same alignment problem I have they just aren't noticing it. In order for this problem to be solved we need more input from the end user to actually find the source of the problem and fix this damn thing.

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If you just work with us, we can resolve it as I've already provided some info. The tensioner I can guarantee is not the issue. As we've said, we have come across a few that did the same thing with the old tensioner and a shim fixed the issue.

agrump said:

The belt runs true, no wandering. Alignment looks much better then it did, seems to be parallel to the dampener and water pump but really hard to tell by eyeballing it, and too sick to mess with it today. Broke the belt after only 150 miles while doing a fairly violent third gear acceleration and immediate deceleration. Not sure why but the belt must of come off of a pulley and got caught up on something.

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Belt snapping is from 2 things separate from actual mfg defect at bonding point.

1. Misadjustment on tensioner, tensioner can't keep up with belt stretch, the whip action from the engine and SC when both are starting/stopping at different rates, along with the tensioner out of sync of the belt hitting the stop, causes a major stretch point which rips apart the belt.

2. On Dayco HD cast tensioner, there was a parting line from the casting, in some cases this parting line had a positive, which when one hits the limiter, similar action as #1 happens, but the belt hits the body, rubs the positive rough edge of the parting line and cuts the belt and then it rips/parts.

Auto trans cars rarely will ever hurt a belt. Manual cars, with miss shifts, rev limits, long shifts at WOT, lack of torque converter, etc. all play parts of making the belt have an issue.

The billet tensioner was also designed for the spring edge to be located in a different position which allows the belt to steer clear of the spring sharp edge.

SoCalTim said:

I use laser alignment tools whenever I service pulley/belt driven equipment at my power plant.

Has anyone ever tried using a laser alignment tool to see exactly how 'in spec' their Whipple pulley is?

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We use it all the time, one of the best cheap tools. All shops should have these.

4orceFed said:

None of these issues are instilling confidence in my up coming Whipple purchase. Seems they're becoming more apparent. What gives?

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This is unfortunate. I know it's easy for me to say but I hope this speed bump for some doesn't change your mind. As Dustin has said, there are more Whipple kits on the street than any other power adder, period. This is why it may seen there is an issue, its just there are so many more out there its more likely for small issues to be heard. I really want to stress that this is not wide spread, its only a small percentage. Regardless, its how these things are handled that you should be concerned with. Its been said here by most everyone but it really is true, you will not find better customer service ANYWHERE. Dustin, Mike, Jeff, William ALL of them are the nicest bunch of people I have ever deal with, period.

I was one of the first people to put a Whipple on my 2015 and it's been 2 years now and I am still being taken care of. Have you ever heard any other company stand behind their product this well? I have not.

I wish you the best but please don't hesitate to join the Whipple family