subgunman

Hello,
have another question for the knowledgeable.
Had to pull the new motor back out of my sons 88 iroc because the meathead engine builder honed cylinders for iron rings and put plasma molly ones in......yes I was very pissed but over it now.
WE are in the process of finishing up the re install today and most likely rest of the week and we decided to replace the stock exaust manifolds with a set of hooker headers so we could work on the car easier in the future.
I am removing the air pump and I presume the stock serpentine belt will now be tooooo lonnnng.
Anyone done this before and does anyone have a manufacturer or part number of a new belt to compensate for the loss of the air pump????????
Thanks in advance!

Dewey316

Actualy, to get everything to spin right, without the AIR pump, you have to re-route the belt a little diffrently. You end up using a slightly longer belt. Interestingly, it seems to vary slightly. I have used a 96.5" on mine. My friends GTA used a 94" and one time in a pinch, i bought an off brand 96.5" that didn't fit, and had to get a 97.5" to get it to work.

vic_V8

their is a tech article on the homepage about it

MrDude_1

https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/t...rpentine.shtml

subgunman

Dewey 316, can you tell me if the water pump will still turn in the same DIRECTION??
The tech article mentions everything will "spin" as it di, but I need to make sure it will spint the SAME direction.
We got a new flow kooler water pump and it must turn the direction it did before of it will not work!
thanks

MrDude_1

the BACK of the belt (non ribbed side) needs to be whats touching the water pump.

as long as its the BACK touching, its turning the right direction.

antoine

gm makes a small bracket with a pulley that is for poeple who removed there ac or smog pump,and you can still use your same belt.

subgunman

Do you by any chance know the part number? Also does it require the use of the large magnesium housing that used to house the pump? I have already hacked that off below the ac bracket for apperance!

Dewey316

You might want to keep on eye on the bracket. There is actualy quite a large amount of force on it. My car actualy ripped a bracket in half, and sheered 2 bolts off in the head. There is a reason GM used so many bolts to mount it.

laiky

I have the bracket, but you don't need it. If i had it to do againi would not have gotten the bracket. It's just one more thing to fail. Reroute the belt and get a slightly shorter or longer one, which ever it requires. You can start with the stock belt and just adjust the size if necessary, you really don't need to spend any extra money.

eric305TPI

I would agree with Dewey about keeping the bracket intact with all the bolts. I snapped my drivers side bracket (in process it sheared off the bolts in the drivers side head, not fun to drill out BTW) due to the A/c kicking on at high (3200) rpm all because I didn't put all the bolts in when I put the brackets on.

Duck

When I upgraded my '87 V-belt 5.7 to serpentine, I removed the AIR pump and used a longer, re-routed belt. It worked ok and I never had any problems, but did observe a lot of belt flopping when the AC kicked-in. Enough so that I was concerned about losing the belt at high rpms.

About a year later, I purchased GM Part #10186167 "water pump pulley" @ $35 which replaced the AIR smog pump and uses the stock serpentine belt. End result is a much more stable belt operation. A cheaper alternative to buying the pulley is to gut the smog pump and keep the unit in place.

Also, ensure that all the required metal rod braces are in place and all nuts and bolts are tight to prevent metal fatigue and eventual failure.

DartByU

I had my air-pump lock up a few weeks ago, lucky for me I was at idle sitting at a red light right beside a NAPA auto parts store when all of a sudden I hear a squealing noise and lots of smoke come out from under the hood, the engine died so I fired it back up and wheeled into the NAPA parking lot, I thought I was going to rip the steering wheel off before I got it parked because it was so hard to turn with my fast ratio steering box and no power steering. Anyway I pull my tools out and start taking off the air-pump, I have a underdrive crank pulley on my car and I tried several lenghts but ended up with a 95" long belt, it runs great this way with no belt flopping as was just mentioned.