Chris,
Art is right and don't run it like this or you will destroy the belt in
short order.
One rule of thumb on final drive belts is they should be tighter than what
seems comfortable.
However, the drag actually appears to go down once gets into the correct
(high) tension range.
Judging tension from amount of twist is only valid for known setups.
The center to center distance will change the appropriate twist for
different cars.
Chuck
From: "Art" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: [F500] Belt Tightening
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:04:00 -0400
Chris,
Yes, an almost 90 degree twist is probably too much "looseness" in the
belt.
And yes again, what you heard is probably ratcheting. The only way to tell
is to test the new adjustment in your driveway or ???????
If is difficult to be more definite, not knowing or seeing your exact
setup,
but it should be a pretty good guess sitting here on the computer. BTW, in
adjusting the tightness of the belt, it is not necessary to adjust all 4
links, just the top two will be fine. Make sure you're turning the links in
the right direction :-).
If you come down to Deland for a Solo, I'd be glad to help you out or try
to
answer questions about our cars.
Art
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Christopher Eveland
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 6:21 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [F500] Belt Tightening
Hi all-
Its been a busy week, and I have a pile of newbie questions...
The story so far: As you may remember, I broke the cog belt on my '00 Red
Devil on its maiden autox voyage... I got the belt back in there, and
successfully raced it last weekend. (Christy and I were 1-2 of 2 people in
class. ;) .... about a second behind BM, and 2 secs behind
EM) On launches it made a funny noise that sounded almost like the
diffuser
was dragging on the pavement, but I don't have near that much suspension
travel, so I figure it must be something else. Question 1:
Is this the "racheting" I've heard about?
When I try and twist the belt in the center, I can get maybe 80-85 degrees
of twist w/ 1 hand. Quesiton 2: Is this too loose? I'm thinking so.
Under the assumption that this was indeed too loose, I figured I should
lengthen all 4 of the suspension links. Question 3: Is that indeed the
best way to preserve my existing alignment/geometry?
Question 4: How do I know if I've lenthened a suspension arm too far?
(Ie backed out a heim joint too far?) I'm guessing I want at least a
diameter of threads engaged, but is there a trick for figuring this out w/o
unscrewing the whole thing? I'm really nervous about not being able to get
things back to the pre-existing geometry.
So far I've done 1 turn's worth on all 4 links... which I think tightened
it
up some...
Anyway, any help is appreciated!
-Chris
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