Here are the two 88mm pullies that I have. As a note I was mistaken as to which one had the outer ridges. The pulley on the left was the first one I recieved and had issues with the belt riding up the front of the pulley. The pulley on the right as you can see has an extra 2-3mm offset and has given me no issues for the last couple years.[ATTACH][/ATTACH]

 

Glad they followed through. Hope it cures your problem!

 

Sweet Zombie Jesus!


Yes, that looks quite familiar...

Any chance there is a part number on that revised pulley, so I know what I can ask for? My current has "KraftWerks 016-133 88mm" etched on the face. The car in your sig is a 97 but the 1.8 and its accessory mounting should not have changed between 97 and 00. I'm trying not to get TOO excited but that one pic possibly answers 8 months of frustration.

KraftWerks: ಠ_ಠ

Scott/Scooter25: THANK YOU! I regret that I only have one prop to give for that post, but its all yours. I missed your profile visitor message but I did get your PM and will reply shortly.

 

Good luck, I hope this solves your issues. It's a bummer what everyone has gone through with kraftwerks.

 

Agreed. I'm just hoping that this thread helps someone else out there who is having similar problems.

 

Indeed, it looks like the exact same scenario I had. Niether of the pullies I have are labled with any part #. Definitly have Brian refer to this thread, and tell him to shoot me an email if he has any more questions. When I was down there last week it seemed like they were actively trying to sort out the NA kit.

 

Any status update?

 

Thanks for asking, but no updates. I spent the weekend dealing with torrential rain and high wind. Not exactly work outside on the car weather. I'll try to see if I have time and the weather cooperates after work this week. Will definitely keep everyone updated.

 

Where did you get the pulley on the right ?

 

I actually got both pullies from Kraftwerks.

 

I got the whole thing installed again last night with the revised mounting plate and auto tensioner. The guys at KW cut the lower alignment pin off the auto tensioner and cut a new notch in the top of the mounting plate for the top pin. Using this notch for the top pin should allow significantly more preload on the auto tensioner than previously. I'll be honest, I'm not super impressed with the new notch. What remains is about 1/16" think wall of aluminum between the original hole and the new notch. As soon as I put tension on it to move it out of the way to get the belt mounted, it deformed. KW assures me its fine, and its under warranty. We'll see. Forgot to take pics, I'll do so if/when I pull it off again.

The standard preload is 2-4mm as listed in my instructions. As you can see, I'm way beyond that now


You can barely see it, but down in the lower right corner of the image you can see the new "fixed" idler. This is a revised part that I opted to purchase. Its steel instead of plastic and I believe the face is flat, not crowned like my original. It has a single bearing of larger diameter and its held in place with a snap ring. Unlike the original plastic bodied dual bearing unit, this one should actually be serviceable with an off the shelf Timken or NSK sealed bearing. This idler is also larger in diameter than the plastic one so it causes interference with the steel hardline that connects to the power steering pump. There is about 1/8" clearance between the pulley and the steel hardline now, and I've used up about 1/2 of the available adjustment range on the "fixed" idler to get there.

I primed the oiling system and started it with no complaints. I let it run for 30 minutes at idle until everything warmed up. I drove around the neighborhood for 10 minutes and then checked the belt and clearances. Everything looked good so I went and drove my standard 15 mile "test drive route" and checked things again, so far so good. I didn't really push it into boost quite yet, I want to go easy on this belt for a couple days before I start abusing it. I drove it to work this morning and checked it in the parking lot, still looks good.

To give you an idea of my failure rate, I was previously loosing belts between mile 8 and 10 on my standard test drive loop, an uphill pull @ 60mph. This belt has now lasted at least 4x longer than my other belts. I just need it to last 500x that and I'll be happy.

 

Good news!

 

I just got back from Afghanistan and wanted to post some pics of the pulley setup that came with our Rotrex in hopes it will help out anyone having issues.

 

First - Welcome back and thanks for your service, brother.

Tankrust you appear to have the same version of the kit that I have. The top pin of my autotensioner fits into a hole to the right of the notch in the top, as does yours. You also have the same scuffing on the back of the belt that I have. I asked Emilio about this, and there should be no scuffing of the back of the belt.

So I went and stared closely at things for a while.

I discovered that my autotensioner pulley was not exactly parallel with the other pulleys. Looking from the passenger fender down the belt towards the crank pulley, I could see a slight angle that the belt had to take between the crank pulley and the autotensioner. Also, my autotensioner pulley seemed to be extremely close to the mounting plate. Extremely close as in, there were a couple of marks on the mounting plate and the back of the pulley was scuffed. Lastly, I noticed the engine side of the belt was chafed from riding against the flange on the engine side of the autotensioner pulley. I had not thrown or broken any belts in 10k miles, but most of the blue was worn off, and there was obvious belt dust around the autotensioner.

What I did was create a shim to go underneath/around the bottom mounting pin of the autotensioner. ( Note I specifcally did not use a washer, as that would give the back of the autoensioner something to pivot around. The top of the shim will need to be a straight line.) This spaced it out a bit from the mounting plate to give more clearance there, and has made it parallel (or almost so) to the other pulleys. Even though it is now spaced out farther, the belt does not appear to be riding against the flange as it was before, which would make sense as the previous angle to the pulley would cause the belt to try to climb against the flange.

I only just got the car back on the road today, so haven't stressed it at all, but there was no squeaking at all from the new belt. Previously I would always have some annoying noise at startup until the car (and I assume therefore the belt) was warmed up).

 

It is indeed. (btw: You internet stalking me? Saw your friend request on m.net the other day )

I've been driving on it all week and flogging the hell out of it. It seems to be holding up just fine, but I do get the occasional squeaks from the belt when I first start the car and its cold out ('cold' here in CA is about 45°F ) Actually, I can't 100% blame the rotrex for that, it could be I need to tighten the alternator belt a bit. I decided to replace it in a fit of madness while I had everything else apart.

Thank you for your service, and welcome back! The pics are in deed helpful! Looking at your pics and the ones in Mobius' build thread, It looks like KW enlarged the notch on the top of my mounting plate only slightly. It looks like you have a bit of wear on the engine side of the belt, have you had any squeaking or howling issues with it? After destroying 3 of the Gates Blue belts @ $40/ea, I stopped using them so I have no idea what a properly worn one looks like.

Mobius: Thanks for posting the info on the shim and the wear you experienced. The more info we can get out there, the better off we all are. The shim on the lower end of the autotensioner is interesting... KW completely removed the bottom "mounting pin" from my autotensioner, perhaps to eliminate this issue? Please keep us posted either way. I ordered your parts list last night from Silicone Intakes and gave FM a call about the charge pipe. Looks like the intercooler is the cheap part of the system!

I'm also curious as to what type of belt tension you guys are running. I noticed from most of the pictures that not everyone did the "draw a line with a sharpe" thing. If you guys pull your autotensioners, please mark them. It would be nice to get some additional data points on belt tension.

Anyone still using that super/power/voodoo/band-aid card, stock injectors and an additional wideband? I've got an AEM UEGO upstream of my cat and I'm seeing mid 12.xx @ 0-1psi, low 11.xx @ 2-3psi, and anything over that, my gauge pegs at max rich (anything over 10.0) and from what I've read, that seems excessive. I'm also wondering what kind of street mileage you guys are seeing. My gas mileage has gone to heeeeeell. Some of that can be expected from heavy right foot action, but I'm looking at a solid 8+mpg loss on my first tank.

I've got a track day scheduled for MRLS on March 31. Hopefully I can get the IC, MS and injectors in and the car tuned before then. I'd prefer not to track it on that bandaid.

 

Richest I saw with my supercard + oem injectors was 10.8 or so, and those were only brief readings. It was usually in the low elevens.

My first moderate test drive today with the xede showed me I need to pull fuel also - I was able to see 9.x on my LC-1 consistently.

 

What! You don't want to date a 59 year old bald man with 2 boys that are probably older than you! Actually, I am thinking of going with a Rotrex, but not until I see if anyone is going to stand behind them.

Stalker

 

Haha! No worries, it had been forever since I logged in over at m.net and my brain did the thing when I saw your username. Figured I'd ask

I would give Kraftwerks and/or the Jacksons another year to see what happens with the whole Rotrex thing before I'd be willing to recommend it to anyone. It just does not seem to be developed to the point where all the bugs are worked out. It was not my intent to pay to help field test something

I chose the rotrex for reasons I've already explained so I won't go into it again. If you don't have to deal with the crazy emissions stuff, just call FM or BEGI and get a turbo + exhaust or look for deals on used stuff. There is enough info on this site to keep you busy for quite some time.

 

Good to hear everything is starting to work out for you. The marks I made on the auto tensioner show roughly 4mm of preload @ idle. I only really get belt squeal on startup when it is cold and damp out. In fact I think my 4runner is worse than the miata :P

 

It's been a while so I probably owe this thread an update.

Car has been running great, no issues except the occasional squeak. Gas mileage has improved so I'm pretty sure that was just me driving like a jackass. Belts are behaving and are now wearing as expected. Living day-to-day with the rotrex is not that bad. The only thing I notice is the blower seems to make a little more noise when cold than it does before it warms up, but then again so does my engine and transmission. Hell, so do my joints in the morning

Tried to install my Megasquirt over the weekend and that didn't go so well... Looks like my MAP sensor may be faulty. I tried everything I could think of and I couldn't get it to work. Brainy has a copy of my MSQ so we'll see if its a config issue or what.

I need to get off my *** and send Brian @ Skunk2 an update email and thank him for his help. The car certainly wouldn't be running this well without his help!