Procharger idler bracket/ modifications questions
 

I have been running a m-3sc procharger for around 10 years, could never get consistent boost with the 8 rib drive pulleys/belts once I started using a upper pulley under 4.00 inches so a long time ago I converted mine to 12 rib wide drive. 2 years ago I couldn't make as much boost as normal and felt belt was slipping, when I tightened up the tensioner enough to get slip to stop it cocked the tensioner enough compounded by wear in the point where it swivels and it almost immediately shredded the 12 rib belt when it tried to run cockeyed. I had some used tensioner parts laying around from a spare set-up, stuck them on and it ran good for another 30 hours.
Was just on Vacation, boat was only making 1/2 as much boost as normal, tightened up tensioner a little more and boost came right back and it shredded my belt after a short time (minutes). The tensioner sucks, as you actually tighten it enough to get slip to stop it has so much leverage on it that it wears uneven then always cocks pulling belt off center and trying to drag it off pulley ribs. Instead of me giving Procharger anymore of my cash I am looking for permanent solutions others may have found, Smitty

I been told a m-5 tensioner can be made to work but not sure with stock bracket for m-3 if this is do-able. I also found a bracket that reichard sells that might work but they haven't called me back yet
http://www.reichardracing.com/images...tensioner2.jpg

How much boost are you making, or make when the belt is not slipping?? I have talked to a bunch of guys, including procharger, they have said that they have exp more belt slip with the 12 rib then with the 8.. Sounded funny to me, but it has been from even the guys at procharger.. With a 4'' pulley using a 7.65 crank pulley, I would think that would only be about 10 or so psi on a 4-500 cube engine.. Have you checked into different pulleys.. Reichard makes a pulley that has grooves cut into it for added grip also..


John jr

No clue what you're running but, we never had luck with the stock Procharger brackets, they bend and the belt slips. Didn't matter which tensioner 4 or 5.

Fixx
 

tey adding a rear support to the procharger bracket to keep it from flexing..

I used to run 8 rib belts and pulleys, once I started using a upper pulley that was under 4.00" in dia I could NEVER get belt to not slip some or make boost consistently. A few years ago I stuck one of my old 8 rib belts on my 12 rib pulleys while waiting for a new belt, slipped like there was no tommorrow so I think the Procharger guys are blowing sunshine on that subject, they were happy to sell me the 3.85 and 3.70 dia 8 rib pulleys years ago and when I called asking how to get my boost to be consistent everytime they told me that 12 ribs or cog drive would be the only answer and I was wasting my time with the 8 rib. I converted to 12 rib and it was night and day better than the 8 rib ever was as far as consistently making boost.
Recently however, I have had problems with getting belts to live once they are tight enough to not slip (they still need to be pretty tight even with 12 ribs). The idler pivot bracket is wore out and not the greatest design, I was hoping someone had found something better to switch to instead of going the same route. I could probably buy the stuff new again from procharger and it would work fine for another 5 years though as it did work well at one point, Smitty

I run 12-15 psi of boost depending on air density and my upper pulley choice. I am definately going to look at having Reichard groove my upper pulleys as I have heard you can run much less belt tension at same boost levels, could never get them to call me back last time I was looking at this, called them today again now that I am re-visting this and got the same thing I did a few years ago though, voice mail, Smitty

I dropped of my spare bracket at a CNC guy we both know to look at building something stronger but I think he's been tied up changing JETS on his Procharged twin catamaran all summer, Smitty

I seen them today on some websites and it seems like part of the solution, Smitty

I don't know if the 3 bolts up the same as the 4, if so he has one of mine that he didn't use, it's set up for the 5 tensioner.

I thought Randy was going to EFI

There is a guy on ebay, that will cut your pulley for a few bucks, rather then buy one of them $$$$ ones.. Also not sure how you have your set up configured, but if you are using a idler pully, is there any way to drill a new hole mount for it in the bracket to give you more pulley wrap?? Just thought, that is what I did on my set up on my truck.. I am currently running 12 psi on my truck on a 6 rib kit, with 0 slip, but I have a ton of pulley wrap..

Here is the guy on ebay, this might be worth a shot..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Proch...item4cec028611

John jr

Randy is going to, I just got him a smoking deal on efi harnesses and ecu's, Smitty

Thanks, Smitty

Still never heard back from Reichard racing about machining the pulleys or their billet bracket, I did order a M-5 idler today from Procharger after CNC sent me a pic of his, it looks drastically better than the junk I been using, Smitty

Smitty, I like the looks of that, doing away with that swing tensioner....strait push should be much stronger...good luck and thanks for your help with my pulley deal...Rob

Rob, your pulley and belt went in mail yesterday, Smitty

[QUOTE=articfriends;3480804]Still never heard back from Reichard racing about machining the pulleys or their billet bracket, I did order a M-5 idler today from Procharger after CNC sent me a pic of his, it looks drastically better than the junk I been using, Smitty[/QUOTE

Nice picture, that's my M4 and bracket.

Nice picture, that's my M4 and bracket.
And it's been put to good use!!!:evilb:

That's a good thing! How's the boat running Randy ?

Port mine..... Starboard yours...

It's not polished, I thought I would be seeing EFI by now. A set of XFI self tune with wide band, or something. Looks nice !

That looks good. You need to take the idler and move it as close to the blower pulley as you can, to get the most avail belt wrap you can.. I see your not running a IC. Meth, water Injection??

John jr

Yes I am running a IC ....A big one Right on top.... See the hoses?

Ok your is prettier..... MEFI winter project.... Struggle through the summer w/carbs

Excellent idea

It still looks great. Do you have any belt slip with the heavier bracket ?

Not sure...don't think so...
On dyno boost continues to climb all the way 6000 rpm, that is all we pulled to.

A follow up report on the blower idler, could never get Reichard racing to respond via the phone or email about grooving my upper pulleys, talked to a mustang street racer who told me that they only groove the pulleys for drag racing and at that point belts become a item that is replaced almost daily. I talked to scde performance about building me a better idler, they never got back with me. I ended up buying a m-5 tensioner and 2 more new belts thinking my problems would be solved. First road block was tensioner was so big that it was physically impossible to mount it on my main mounting bracket, built a intermediate bracket and mounted it, put new belt on and took boat to Hot boat weekend. It promptly shredded a new blower belt in 20 minutes AND would only make 9si of boost at best and as soon as belt got hot more like 4-5 psi, shimmed intermediate bracket out and installed another new belt, took 3-4 hours of running before it shredded belt down to 9 ribs AND would only make 7 psi of boost at best and 4-5 psi most of the time. Shimmed m-5 tensioner out even further in a attempt to keep belt from shredding and put my high boost pulley on and a shorter belt (ran out of belts that fit my normal one). Would still only make 4-7 psi of boost but belt didn't shred in 3-4 hours of run time. Just got around to trying to move forward today with this dilemma , pulled tensioner off boat, first marked the plunger though to have a reference of how deep it was and how much spring tension it had. Put in arbor press with a cheap spring checker, compressed it to my mark and guess what-120 psi of tension. I then mocked up my spare blower bracket and one of my junk m-3sc tensioners with the spring checker, with it tensioned about where it would be on the boat I am seeing 220 plus psi and even tighter before spring goes solid as much as 300 psi. I then dug thru every box of spare old valve springs and assorted parts and found every spring that was close to dimensions as springs in the m-5 tensioner. I found that 3 bbc inner valve springs stacked together in the tensioner along with 3 4l60e transmission pump priming springs was about physically the same length. I also found a short, stiff accumulator spring from a shift kit and added that to the bottom of the plunger. I now have about 220-240 psi of tension when I compress the m-5 tensioner to the same spot/mark. Looking at cnc's m-5 tensioner on HIS motors they are even further out of the plungers BUT the m-4/m-5 blowers use much LARGER upper pulleys so there is much more belt traction even with less spring/tension. Going to try it this weekend then leakdown the motor for the season and see if its time for a rebuild (just went over 100 hours). On a side note I also found mention of running (2) 6 rib belts in place of the hard to find 12 rib belts, I bought 2 6 rib greback fleet runner belts to try. I also found a 12 rib/64" fleetrunner belt for only 17$ and bought that to try although it will be VERY hard to get on being 1/2 inch shorter than my shortest belt. Will report results soon, Smitty

Hey Smitty, here's an engineered scale drawing of what I tried that seems to be working so far... :grinser010:

As others have stated if the bracket flexes it doesn't really matter what the tensioner's doing. Also, a little bit of detonation or valve float will kill the belt too.

The 500EFI procharger mounting bracket gives you more room and better routing so you can get much better wrap on the pulley.

Smitty, good luck I still think the blower is flexing under high RPM causing the belt shredding....can you set up a camera to watch it after a run ?? like they say pics worth a 1000 words...andway hope your weather is better than here..wash out last weekend and this once looks worse so far..want to test with your pulley bad !!! Rob

I do understand what everyone is saying about the main bracket flexing and I am having Randie/CNC build me a better one this winter BUT for many years the stock bracket has worked even at 12-14 psi of boost and belt shredding was never a problem until tensioner became worn (which they quickly do when tigthened as tight as they need to be to make boost without slipping). I am finding there is 2 problems I ran into/created with the new tensioner as mentioned in my last post, there is simply not enough spring tension from the m-5 tensioner when compared to my old one to keep belt from slipping and the new tensioner is not perfectly aligned which along with flex is shredding blower belts. Thru trial and error I think shimming the mounting bracket I have new tensioner on will solve the shredding problem for now and the 3 bbc inner valve springs I replaced the stock m-5 spring with will keep belt tighter as I have 220-240 psi of tension on the belt now vs 120, we'll see Sunday, Smitty

stay tuned film @ 11 !!! good luck !

Ran boat, put new, slightly shorter green stripe belt on. Because belt was shorter m-5 tensioner was compressed FURTHER than what I set the springs to rsulting in too much belt pressure. It clearly was bending the supercharger bracket AND belt was running into the idler pulley and actually FOLDING but it didn't shred. Boat made 10-11 psi even with this set-up, idler pulley was so hot you couldn't touch it though. Tied up to the dock and moved tensioner out further, bolted it to one set of the mounting holes vs 2, now instead of being too compressed it had to be extended FARTHER out then last time I had boat out. I drove it this way, belt slipped, let it out further and further until I saw belt FOLDING again on pulley:angry-smiley-038:, tightened it back 1/2 turn from there and was able to get full boost out of it but it is sure mickey-moused. I'm going to bolt a stock tensioner (like my 2 wore out ones) that someone is sending me from Indiana before winter comes just to get a clear idea of what the real problem is. I will know how much spring force you really need to keep belt from slipping when I measure the spring tension on the m-5 tensioner at its current extended length, somewhere between thev 120 psi it came with and the 240psi I had at my marked plunger length from before ,Smitty

Smitty, can you use a lighter spring and then use some shims to dial the pressure in for a certain belt ?

Here are a couple of pics I took, with idler shimmed perfect so that the pulley is centered you rev it up and once it flexes the blower bracket the belt climbs onto the idler wheel and then was actually running folded, I f I shim the idler out further it starts shredding (or in the case of this green belt) it folds and runs all screwed up on the idler. I am going to stick a stock tensioner back on it that someone is sending me and see wtf is going on!!!!

That would be no problem, the thing is though once I moved it further away yesterday I kept letting the tensioner out and it kept slipping, I reached a point where it folded the belt and flexed the main bracket and just a thread or 2 back on the adjuster it didn't slip and didn't fold the belt BUT it should not be that touchy!!