I have a technical question to ask...

I own a 1966 Chevy 2 Nova and I am looking for a serpentine pulley system for my SWP, (short water pump) 350 block. I know that the aftermarket is just flooded with the "March Pulley" set-up but I was wondering if someone already did their homework and used a late model serptine belt/pulley system on a 1st or 2nd Gen Camaro.

I was going to go this route:
http://www.blackmountainprecision.com/sb1.htm

but, the price tag is just a little out of the question. All I have on the car is a V-belt that runs the water pump, alt and the crank pulley. I know I am going to need to do some labor but, I was just wondering if there is a low budget way of doing this. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.


Dan

 

For just the WP and alternator I would think a serpentine setup would be maybe just a bit of overkill.

All factory serpentine setups are for long water pumps. And they are reverse rotation water pumps becuase they are driven by the back side of the belt. Also, the alternator is on the opposite side of the engine from your v-belt setup.

Factory serpentine setups like on a 3rd gen Camaro are designed to drive: smog pump, A/C, tensioner/idler, alternator, power steering and water pump. The smog pump is easily bypassed. The A/C is easily replaced with an A/C delete (1LE) pulley. But the power steering is pulley is not so easily bypassed. Might be possible, might not. The belt would be looping back on itself a little more than 180* around the alternator pulley- certainly it would require careful belt length selection to work, if it would work at all.

An alternative, although not a really good one, would be the serpentine setup from an 86-87 TPI motor. They're not really serpentine setups at all. They just use a 6-rib serpenitne belt around the carnk, alt. and water pump but without a tensioner pulley. It's tightened down the old fashioned way- by rotating the alternator in it's brackets to tighten the belt. The alternator stays on the same side as your motor now, although it's a different style alternator. You can still use a standard rotation water pump, but it's still the long style. You can buy these setups dirt cheap- nobody wants them- they want later model true serpentine setups. The other real downside is that there are several other v-belt grooves on the factory pulleys in this setup to drive the A/C, P/S and smog pump that will go unused and look rather ugly just hanging out doing nothing.