Whipple belt tension and adjuster

[tacitup]

Question for those of you that have a whipple, I know in instructions it says to set automatic belt tensioner at 75-80% of its travel, but does that mean when you release it and it applies tension to belt that it should be at about 75% and only has left 25% to apply more tension before it hits the stop? Also about where is your adjustable tension idler pulley set at on the slider that adjusts up or down?

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[pro 5.0]

I have the K060891 belt and my adjustable idler is all the way at the bottom, I use the 3.625 pulley and my tensioner is in the middle of it's travel. Meaning it can go up and tension the belt and it can go down on decel and the tensioner will never hit the stops in either direction.

 

[tacitup]

Thanks, thats about how i have mine set and i am running the 3.75 pulley, reason I am asking is because I the belt that kit came with broke, I have idler up about 1 inch from from the bottom on the adjustable slider. Although the belt had slight imperfection/defect when I was looking at it before I ever put it on, only had the kit on for 2 days now. My tensioner is close to middle of the stops also. I was reading your post also about belt being 1 rib off, I noticed exact same thing on mine, belt runs true and centered on all pulleys except for the idler directly above tensioner, runs on the very back edge of that idler, and that makes run very close to the back edge of the water pump pulley. Keep me informed if you find a way to get it right. Thanks.

 

[pro 5.0]

I will try to get a picture up but I removed the tensioner and put a straight edge across the back mounting point to the pulley and there is a gap of about .060 - .070. I believe that the tensioner is driving the belt to ride close to the engine and that is why the belt rides to the rear side of the smooth idlers. Hoping that the new billet Whipple tensioner will take care of this misalignment, the tensioner was said to be available for around Dec 17 but I haven't heard anything as of yet.

 

[tacitup]

I was thinking the same thing that the tensioner pulley mount on the mounting plate was was not true and making the belt ride on the back edge of the smooth idler. So I was playing around with it and I put a washer behind the tensioner and mounted it back up, and you can see when I did, tensioner had belt at tensioner pulley angled towards front of vehicle but did not pull the belt off the back edge of the smooth idler.

 

[tacitup]

Here is how mine looks, washer is not behind idler now I did that just to see if helped the issue.

 

[tacitup]

Hard to see but just as pro5.0 described also, 1 rid off compared to water pump pulley

 

[pro 5.0]

Here is a pic of mine it wouldn't let me upload due to file size so I had to mess around and re size it, but it clearly shows the miss alignment I am referring to.

 

[pro 5.0]

I was thinking the same thing that the tensioner pulley mount on the mounting plate was was not true and making the belt ride on the back edge of the smooth idler. So I was playing around with it and I put a washer behind the tensioner and mounted it back up, and you can see when I did, tensioner had belt at tensioner pulley angled towards front of vehicle but did not pull the belt off the back edge of the smooth idler.

Funny we think alike I also spaced my tensioner out in .035 increments and ended up at .070 and the belt still rode to the back side of the smooth idlers. It was after doing this that I started to dig further and measured the tensioner assembly itself to verify if it was tracking true or not. I believe that it doesn't matter how far out you try to move the tensioner if the tensioner arm is not on the same plane as the mounting point the belt will be biased in one direction as the pulley on the tensioner has a lip on both sides and it dictates where the belt rides.

 

[tacitup]

That is exactly what mine looks like also from that angle. Have you had any issues yet with yours running like that? I am not sure if my belt broke because of the defectI've belt or if it is because of this alignment issue. Belt broke the first time when I got on it a little, I didnt even get to really get on it, happened right about 3800 rpm. And since then drove it a couple of times but just casualy.

 

[Major League Infidel]

Here is how mine looks, washer is not behind idler now I did that just to see if helped the issue.

thats the amount of travel mine has. my belt also rides a little back like that.

 

[zuki_dan]

I just finished the install on my car today and the belt is right on the back edge of the pulley right after the tensioner also. I adjusted my adjustable tensioner to the max vertical position and that put the other tensioner to about 70% compressed.

 

[pro 5.0]

That is exactly what mine looks like also from that angle. Have you had any issues yet with yours running like that? I am not sure if my belt broke because of the defectI've belt or if it is because of this alignment issue. Belt broke the first time when I got on it a little, I didnt even get to really get on it, happened right about 3800 rpm. And since then drove it a couple of times but just casualy.

It may be hard to believe but I installed my OPG, CG & ATI balancer and the Whipple about 3 weeks ago now, I haven't even driven the car yet due to past experience with belts shredding and or snapping on previous twin screw set ups. When I fired up the car I immediately noticed that the belt was not running parallel, I started looking into why this is happening and that is what lead me to discovering that the tensioner pulley is not parallel to the mounting surface. I have contacted Whipple and have sent them video footage and multiple pic's of my findings, they have put in a request on my behalf for the new billet tensioner. I refuse to drive the car with the belt mis aligned as it sits now as it could cause cosmetic damage to the hood or worse the belt could get caught up behind the balancer and tear the crank seal, it's happened to me before. I am patiently waiting for the new tensioner and hope it solves the problem as the machining process involved in making it will be much better controlled over a cast tensioner, I thought the tensioner would have been available by now but I guess with the holidays everything is lagging behind. I believe that we have a good amount of information in this thread and I hope that we can all soon find a resolve for this issue.

 

[pro 5.0]

This is what we are looking at I have a straight edge running across the back side of the tensioner where it mounts to the billet bracket. The other end of the straight edge is touching the far end of the tensioner pulley underneath I have a light shining up which is shinning through the in even gap. As you can see the tensioner pulley does not run in a parallel plane to the mounting point, this is what I believe is driving the belt to be off 1 rib and also causing it to ride on the back side of the smooth idlers. The gap at the lower end of the picture is near .100

 

[sigintel]

Broke my first belt quick too.
Turned out it wasnt set tight enough.
Also, there was mold line flashing, a tall burr of aluminum on the tensioner body that cut into the belt when it stretched and tensioner extended to take up slack.
Belt got cut on the burr.
Had to pull tensioner and grind burr down.

Have spent $1000 in my time trying to fix squeal and alignment issues.
Running new routing and the bad cold squeal is gone but I now have hot noise probs.
Light squeal with ringing. Ready for some permanent fix. Been thru 6 belts but new routing is looking like the belt will last much longer.

Think I might have cooked cats too but...

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