FIRST E/T TIMES!!! and a charging prob.

[Agent_4573]

So I headed over to Englishtown Raceway in good old english town, NJ tonight and ran my stang for the first time on the track. My best ET was a 14.561 at 96.92 MPH. I thought that was pretty good on street tires and nothing but a SUMMIT dual cat exhaust and a set of BBK underdrive pulleys. About the pulleys though, it seem like when im hard on the engine(WOT for more than a few seconds) the power steering pump goes dead. At idle i can't turn the wheel, i have to rev it up first, and tonight my battery died. After my last run i was charging barely over 8 volts. My question is could this be a bad belt(it looks fine when i inspected it) or possible a bad torque arm allowing the belt to slip when the engine get hot? Any ideas on this would help cuz i really don't want to have to put back on the stock alternator pulley... eveery HP those pulleys make helps me out alot....

[PKRWUD]

If it was a belt or a belt tensioner problem, you'd hear it. They have a way of letting you know when they're not able to do their job properly. Anytime there is one or more pullies that are not keeping pace with the rest, the belt will scream at you.

It could be several things, but I'd have the alternator checked out first. Okay, scratch that. I'd have the battery load tested first, then have the alternator inspected.

Other things to check are any and all battery/alternator/ground connections and wire/cable quality. There is no reason at all for your voltage to drop that low, even if it was because of the pulleys, unless you were parked with all your accessories on for an extended period of time.

My guess is that your battery probably has a cell going bad, and the new pulleys reduced the alternator's ability to keep it hidden from you. Who knows? Tests will be necessary, and a battery load test should always be the first.

As far as the p/s pump, it could be heading south, too. Changing the crank pulley may have slowed down the p/s pump's rotation just enough at idle to expose the fact that it's beginning to fail. I agree that these may seem like an odd coincidence, but at 13 years of age, things start to fail in a car. Installing the pulleys may have saved you from the aggravation of becoming stranded on two different occasions later on this summer.

Or, it could be Gremlins from the American Cyanamid plant in Bound Brook, but I hear they have them under control.



Take care,
-Chris

[Agent_4573]

Ok... well i'll test the battery as soon as i get home, but the car died on me a little over a month ago and the battery was replaced with a brand new one. Also, I went to visit my friend over easter break and 2 hours into a 3 hours drive my low voltage warning light came on, so i went and had the alternator replaced. But i guess they could be going bad... the weird thing was, when i was sitting there in between runs, even when i revved it to 4000 rpm, the charge wouldn't go above 9 volts, on the way home it slowly climbed back to a normal 12 volt charge even with the headlights on and only crusing at 1500-2000 rpm.

[srv1]

maybe your belt it too big? did you change your belt when you put the belts on?

[Agent_4573]

No, the belt stayed the same. It was in pretty decent shape when I put the pulleys on so I just left the belt on there.

[PKRWUD]

Your pulleys didn't require a different size belt? (some do)

Anyway, just load test the battery first, and then check the alternator output under different loads, etc., and post what happens. We'll go from there.

Take care,
-Chris

[LX XLR8R]

most kits i seen that come with all 3 pullies you use the same size belt cuz the sizes offset themslefs

sound like a short in the battery almostt..just bring it to pepboys or azone and have them check both

[Skyman]

Sounds like your cars running pretty good. A little more tire and better launch and you should see low 14's with that power that your making.

Skyler

[Agent_4573]

Thanks. I'm hoping with a little more practice I'll do better. That was my first time on an actual track with an actualy tree(not a stop light). Next time i go i'm also going to short belt it... that might cut out 1-2 tenths and by then I'll have rotated my tires so the back ones won't be so bald. Whats a good pressure for street tires? I took it down to 25 psi, but didn't want to go any lower than that cus I wasn't sure what would happen.