Whipple belt chirp

[sigintel]

nice post SINGINTEL,you micro managed what Whipple could not.

Whipple is industry leader in customer service, hardware and complete user experience. They are faced with challenges of water pump and front timing cover casting thickness differences as well as alignment on head unit fore/aft and any lateral twist. Then the really tight packaging and routing. Not to mention the inboard AC pulley which has way lower snout bending leverage is basically unroutable for SC use due to timing cover geometry forcing use of outboard serpentine.
I dont think its reasonable to expect they can accommodate every single possible user installation and production variability.(compare GT500 routing: inboard pulley off crank and short belt runs avoided)

I suffered “Whipple Chirp” embarrassment at Cars n Coffee once. Oh the pain.

OCD Former NVH Tier 1 Automotive engineer, so had to come up w a solution capable of road course work and cars n coffee.

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[Excel]

Whipple is industry leader in customer service, hardware and complete user experience. They are faced with challenges of water pump and front timing cover casting thickness differences as well as alignment on head unit fore/aft and any lateral twist. Then the really tight packaging and routing. Not to mention the inboard AC pulley which has way lower snout bending leverage is basically unroutable for SC use due to timing cover geometry forcing use of outboard serpentine.
I dont think its reasonable to expect they can accommodate every single possible user installation and production variability.(compare GT500 routing: inboard pulley off crank and short belt runs avoided)

I suffered “Whipple Chirp” embarrassment at Cars n Coffee once. Oh the pain.

OCD Former NVH Tier 1 Automotive engineer, so had to come up w a solution capable of road course work and cars n coffee.

LOL I always thought and still do that the system should be more than one belt. Driving WOT with your buddy in the car only
to snap a belt on the hwy sucks. I had the tools and a spare with me because I think ahead but if the set up had two shorter belts
of for the motor and one for the SC we would be less inclined to have these issues

 

[96gt4.6]

@sigintel has this nailed down.

The textured back side belt seems to work great, at least for me. However, I ran into a secondary problem which helped me identify the first problem. After a summer of racing, I noticed that one edge of my Motorcraft belt was starting to show some fraying/pieces missing. Further looking into it, I noticed that the belt was not centered on the blower pulley, rather it was oriented more towards the front of the pulley with a small gap at the back between the belt and pulley. This I immediately knew was the cause of the belt's edge fraying, and also I noted that on the smaller idiler pullies below the blower, the wear pattern was highly biased towards the front of the pullies. So, there's an alignment issue, which is exactly what causes the chirp as he has also stated.

Looking at how the belt system is setup, I was able to determine that the alignment of the belt going into the idilers and onto the blower pulley is determined by the angle at which it exits the billet tensioner. For my setup, the tensioner pulley needed to be spaced towards the motor slightly to move the belt back more on both the idilers, and the blower pulley.

I used the appropriate hardware store washer to space the tensioner pulley out (towards engine). It took several tries, with a few different thickness of washers to get the belt to be perfectly centered on the blower pulley/idilers.

Then, I took my original supplied belt that came with my kit and that was SUPER squeaky....and reinstalled it. So far, 1500 miles later, no issues. Being as it is certainly more aggrivated when cold, we now have 15 degree temps here, and i'll be doing a startup here in the next day to see if the squeak has truly been defeated finally.

I will not live with the squeak, period. Car is too new, and system is too nice to have that going on. Embarassing.

I do not fault Whipple at all. The timing cover where the plate and standoffs go is NOT a machined surface....there is NO way to account for the variances in casting and assure a proper alignment on every install. And, after seeing just how small of a thickness variance can change the track of the belt, I understand they why and reasoning as to why this seems to be an issue for some.

I believe the best way to resolve this issue, use a textured back OEM style belt, and make sure the pulley alignment is right on by looking at the track of the belt/wear pattern on the idilers, as well as how centered the belt is in the blower pulley, make adjustments as needed.

The LAST issue I have and am working on is that I have noticed that when the belt's label/part numbers go across those short run/transitions, there is a slight 'noise' which I dislike. It's pretty quiet....but literally the only noise I have less hearing only the sweet whistle of the blower at idle and that is it.

Even then, this last little noise is very minor compared to that horrid squeak......man that's annoying and embarassing!

 

[OrangCrush]

I am having the chirp now that it’s cold. I have had the Whipple for 6k miles. Is it the belt or the way its routed being there is two different ways?

 

[Excel]

after some research ill never buy a 6 rib blower again,Whipple should have retrofitted all these kits as 10 rib systems
and thats a big money option ..Its bullshit

 

[Trent W]

Hey Everyone,
Thought I'd post this here. I don't have the chirp or squeak but I'm 90% sure I have a failing idler pully as its got a horrible whine i can hear even when I'm accelerating. Obviously I've already emailed Whipple and they want to send me a new belt and idler pully (top notch customer service) but seeing as this is most likely just normal wear and tear, almost 100k on the car total. I want to replace anything with a bearing in the belt system. So much respect to Whipple but id rather just order all of it myself. With that being said auto parts stores only have the crappy plastic idlers which are slightly bigger and ford doesn't have them in stock anymore and has NO ETA. Do i trust the plastic ones from Autozone??? I can't find them on Whipple's site either. Only thing I've found is some overpriced aluminum ones but they only come as a pair. I have much better things to spend $500 bucks on than some shiny billet wheels that I'll never see. $30 is what the OEM steel ones use to be... I need 4 I believe. Video of the whine below:

 

[Ruiner46]

@Trent W Did Whipple give you a part number or can you see it on the pulleys? I have a 2.9, so my kit might be different, but my kit uses Gates 36101 and 36326. Also O'Reilly had my idlers in stock locally.

https://www.amazon.com/Gates-36101-Belt-Tensioner-Pulley/dp/B000IY7RE0/ref=sr_1_2?crid=34DJGX4KBAL5M&keywords=36101&qid=1690517221&sprefix=36101,aps,109&sr=8-2

 

[Trent W]

@Ruiner46, Negative I checked all 3 parts stores only plastic. Whipple didn't provide part#'s but that's a good tip I'll check to see if mine has them on the actual pulley. but they are pretty old so i wouldn't be surprised if they are gone.

 

[Ruiner46]

@Ruiner46, Negative I checked all 3 parts stores only plastic. Whipple didn't provide part#'s but that's a good tip I'll check to see if mine has them on the actual pulley. but they are pretty old so i wouldn't be surprised if they are gone.

How are you checking parts stores if you don't have part numbers? The Whipple kit comes with its own pulleys, they aren't the same as the Ford oem pulleys. The oem Mustang pulleys are plastic.

 

[J17GT]

I went through this when one of my Gen5 smooth idler pulleys went bad. There is just some generic number on the pulley that does not seem to cross-reference to anything. Whipple did send me one at no charge.

If I have an issue again, I'll probably just take the bearing out and replace that. Probably easier doing that than trying to size up this pulley and look for one the same size.

 

[Basspro302]

My idler went bad, the bearing race was loose inside the aluminum pulley housing so i could not replace the bearing. I used acdelco 36604 to get me by until the whipple one arrived.

 

[Trent W]

So I ended up calling Whipple you were right @Ruiner46 Those part numbers are the ones they gave me with one exception. The kit comes with 2 of those 36101's and one 36326 Groove tensioner. There is x2 2.50" pullies they didn't give a P/N but are a bit more spendy. They sent me an order form to fill out so I'm just going to do that and have them send me all of them. If I'm spending money I rather send it to Whipple over Amazon. Anyone still has there install manual handy? I forgot the torque spec's seeing as I installed this thing 3 years ago and have no idea where that thing is.

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