It has taken me 3 cog belts and a set of pulleys to realize that this bracket (circled in red) can not and should not be eliminated from the ATI kit..For some reason I was propted to do without it and was ensured by ATI techs that it was a useless part and only put on as a suggestion from JIC on their drift car..I was also informed that it would be eliminated from future kits....So after chewing up 3 $100 cog belts and a set of $100 pulleys,I decided to put it back on and have since determined that for some reason my sc head was getting just enough play under load,to make the rear cog belt jump a few teeth and ruin it..I have put over 300 miles on my new belt and NO signs of the same wear I had experienced prior.My belts prior both completely failed after 200 miles or a few hard runs..So far so good..

 

Interesting, I never installed mine and haven't had any problems. I wonder if they redesigned the bracket and it flexes more. Good info, be sure to let ATI know.

 

That thing was a PITA to put on. You cant fit a Allen wrench in the top bolt so instead i used a cresent wrench, some cardboard, and my kung fu grip to tighten it. >8-D

 

I replaced it with a 9/16" Hex bolt Dont look as nice but it was easy to put in and tighten!!

 

I lost the spacer that ATI sent me. I wonder if they'd replace it under warranty because of my stupidity. They replaced a pulley that I tore up because I forgot to loctite a bolt.

 

Not to hijack but I have a question for you 3 since you seem to have some of the most constructive/useful input on the ATI unit. I am about to purchase either ATI or Vortech and am leaning towards ATI. However, people with the Vortech unit lead me to believe I am crazy for doing so. From all that I have read (reading between the lines), as long as you have a good tuner (barrng the misc. pulley issues, etc) ATI is a solid kit. Would any of you have a problem recommending the ATI or regret going with that system? Any advice would be great! Thanks!

 

When properly tuned the ATI is just fine..I would reccomend it..

Would I go F/I on a N/A car again ....Thats a different story...I think I would just buy a car thats real fast to begin with next time..

 

I have it on mine. So far so good. No shreaded belts or any other problems.

 

Hey doc,

I noticed you have your belt running under the tensioner on the smooth side..How tight is that?Cause when I tried that with my STOCK pulley combo it wouldnt fit,but when I switched the top cog pulley with a 25 tooth instead of 27 tooth it fit like you have it..I am just wondering if you have the stock pulleys??

 

I'd recommend it as long as you took measures to be able to adjust timing.

 

I am pulling 2 degrees based on boost..No detonation yet with 93/94 octane..

 

mine runs underneath now too Daking........i have a lot of miles on my Procharger.........the tensioner runs out of adjustment when the belt stretches too far, and running it underneath the tensioner allows you to get more life out of it

 

I do indeed have the stock pulleys King. I put my belt under the tensioner pulley way back when a few people were toying with it. It has all but eliminated the belt squeal and the belt seems to be tensioned fine. I haven't had any problems at all with it this way. It just seems to be more intuitive to have the smooth part of the belt contact the smooth tensioner pulley instead of the toothed side of the belt.

EJ, are you saying that you have it like mine too?

 

yep.......a while back a lot of us had said that we wanted it like that when we saw it on Max's car........but i never really had a need to until i was doing my regular maintenance and noticed i had no more play left in the tensioner

 

That tensioner should definitely run on the smooth side of the belt (if you can get the proper tension doing so). If you run it on the toothed side, you will prematurely wear the teeth since your idler does not have grooves. Running an inside idler will also reduce the number of teeth engaged on the pulley, which will reduce the torque capability of the system and increase the chance of ratcheting.

Daking, did you ever try tightening the belt to see if that would help stop the ratcheting? If the bracket works, go with it, but both your idler position and tension could be contributing as well. Might want to double check those to see if you can further improve the situation.

-D'oh!

 

Just checking over the Gates design manual, and it says that non-toothed inside idlers are OK as long as they have a sufficiently large diameter. Therefore, it may not be a huge issue, although given the other problems you may still want to flip-flop the idler location to see if that helps.

Here's where you can learn all you wanted to know about belt design:
http://www.gates.com/catalogs/index....ion_id=524#ddm


-D'oh!

 

Here are screenshots of their troubleshooting section:

-D'oh!

 

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