Some of you guys will deny anything that does'nt fit the paradigm in *YOUR* head!

OK..? lets have a little fun JimJr & grinomyte.
What exactly DOES "mean much" for spinning a belt driven FEAD component?
Rich

 

well like i said i don't know in this particular instance what the exact specs are, im just saying that surface area isn't a lone factor on effectiveness. I'm guessing it's quite possible that the gatorback belt exceeds the stock belt in eliminating belt slippage.

 

Surface area is the most critical aspect. No need for a fancy "tread" on the belt since it wont be handling cornering loads or flushing out water. The cuts in a gatorback are more marketing than anything else.

Rich is the man!

oh BTW,

Teh Cobra R waterpump can neva loose!

 

I'm not so sure about that....You might not be flushing out water but you are flushing out air, with that said I still don't care for the Goodyear belts.

 

I've ran the stocker, gatorbacks, and gates belts. I am not really happy with any of them

They all seem to slip; I guess a new gatorback gives me the best results, but I am running a gates right now so go figure

 

Chew on this...I wonder what the long term results would be?

 

Ayrton
Personally I think its suicide but that is just my opinion.

The stock balancer only registers on about 3/4" of the crankshaft nose and the 12 mm bolt isn't big enough in IMO either.

The stock balancer is iron and being dissimilar to the steel crankshaft it does a pretty good job......it moves around but it doesn't wear, the two metals seem to be compatible.

I put an SFI steel balancer on the nose of my steel crankshaft and within less than 300 miles it was already welding itself to the crank. And this was with a JDM caged pulley on there. What I don't know it if the caged pulley caused the balancer to walk around or would it actually have been worse with out it. At any rate it cost me a new crankshaft and a new stock balancer.

Now back to the cog setup......the damper isn't registering on very much crankshaft and the bolt isn't that big and it ain't that strong, even if you use ARP clamping hardware they don't give you the thread engagement you need. So my long winded point is the only thing we got going for us is belt slip....without it...we would be screwed , IMO.
Dale

PS....I hope I'm wrong about this cause that is a cool setup and I wouldn't mind having one

 

I like it…but I don’t trust anything from RPM, and I ma sure as hell not going to try it my “new” engine.

 

I`ve used both belts. In fact I use to stock gaterbacks when I had my shop. The horizontal grooves in the gaterback belts are for ease of wrapping around pullies better and not for belt traction. I believe "MISTERgadget" is correct, the grooves on the gatorbacks are a marketing thing. Personally, I now use the Gates belt. It`s more thicker than the Goodyear and Dayco belts. The grooves are full and that gives you more surface area for better belt traction.

 

I had slip with gates and gatorbacks. I went to a 67" ( I have a 4# lower and 2.80 upper) and belt slip stopped.
A few months ago I installed a aux. idler kit and a 67.5" gatorback. -NO slip.


-Rich

 

I think that maybe the answer is not quite as simple as the "surface area" argument might assume. The important aspect is total friction, right?

A slick tire grips better, other things being equal, to a treaded tire, because more surface area, true. But it is gripping a rough surface. The soft rubber comforms to the gravel in the asphalt and grabs the front edge of each rock, which allows the tire to "push off" from the collection of these tiny rock faces. At least that's how my weed-addled mind sees it.

On my slick painted garage floor, there is almost no grip at all, because there is nothing sticking up for the tires to grip and push off on.

The RR pulley seems to give better grip, yet it has less surface area than a smooth pulley.

The Gatorback has been reported to solve belt slippage problems, yet it also have less surface area than a smooth belt.

Could it be that the irregularities in the RR pulley and Gatorback create pressure points where the grip is increased at those points sufficient to provide an overall increase in traction, even with less surface area?

If not, how does the RR pulley work? Or does it?

I'm not saying that one side or the other is wrong -- I'm just wondering if the "surface area" issue is being framed in two dimensions when it maybe should be framed in three.

 

You mean that you don't believe that their tiny blue open cone filter gives a 14 rwHP gain? Say it ain't so.

 

Hey Tim! I didn`t know your mind was also weed-addled.

 

Well it is blue...

At this point I think a Riechard (sp) pulley and a Gates belt is your best bet, but I sure do like the lok of a cog...

 

Apparently not as addled as yours.