hey guys whats the best serpentine belt system for a t1 engine have seen a few any body got any veiws on maybe one not to buy

cheers
stevo

I have a Scat Serpentine set up on the wifes beetle and happy with it so far.The quality is good for the money ..cheers Jason.

whats the advantage of one of these set-ups? do they just look cool or do they serve a purpose?

thanks mate was looking at the scat one looks like it is better made as for the question as to y easy to adjust and better grip

You can look at my Wifes Whoppie Mods build thread for piccies of it installed if you havent seen it already..gives you an idea how they mount etc..

I have a CB Performance one and a MotorSports Tulsa one.

I found issues with both of them, but once sorted they work really well.
The CB Performance one uses four shoulder nuts and they werent threaded correctly and one nut clashed with the heat riser on the intake manifold.
MotorSports Tulsa one has the crank pulley hub longer to clear aftermarket oil pumps, and that affects the location of the pulley on the alternator or generator. I was not happy with that and I still need to correct the setup on mine.
With regards to the question of whether they serve a purpose? well yes they do serve a purpose. But if you are a die-hard 'factory stock is best' type then you will never appreciate it, or agree. They provide a smoother drive to the generator/fan assembly, and you can actually hear the difference. And they provide a more user-friendly way of adjusting the belt tension.
Thats my 2 bobs worth. Speaking of money, you can deal direct with either of them in the US, but I have seen some more realistic prices recently in Australia.

thats awesome gives me something to look at when buying mine ..... ill be making a trip to sydney soon ill have to call into a few vw spares places while im down there

cheers

I'm not a die hard factory people uber... I love the look of them personally. :-)

I've fitted MST, Scat and BMD and prefer them in that order.

MST one that I have is very good build quality and is very nice indeed!

was looking at the mst version but what about that spacing

What spacing?

Spacing? yes well..
Stock crank, stock case. stock alternator, stock fan housing etc and I had to pull the alternator aft, AND put shims (which were leftover from the CB Performance kit) between the alternator pulley and the alternator shaft shoulder to get the top and bottom pulley to align. I contacted MST and they advised that the hub on the crank pulley is made longer to allow it to clear aftermarket oil pumps. All well and good for some people but personally I think they over extended the hub. I think they were horrified to hear that I planned to get the hub machined shorter. Now before anyone chimes in and implies that I have got it all wrong, ... dont. I actually have a wee bit of experience with rotating machinery. So my experience is that some people may have alignment issues with the MST kit.
But then again I had to dremel some aluminium to get clearance on the stock inlet manifold for a shoulder nut on the CB Performance kit. So there are small niggles with anything you fit to engines.

So you had pulley alignment issues Uber (what a surprise ). I've had two without issues and one where a little adjustment was required but my point is they are better than the others that are less reliable due to inadeguate bearings or such, and are even worse regarding alignment, especially with the tensioner not being square.

I run a vee belt on my own car.

I run a standard diameter 5 1/2 lb steel bottom pulley and a billet top pulley, standard belt available anywhere. if you run one of the serpintine systems you will need to carry a spare belt, just some thing else to go wrong

yeah but....
the 4 or 5 ribbed serpentine belts are just 'off the shelf' standard belts, available at all the main auto parts stores these days anyway.
A belt is one of the essential spares to keep in the car, so you go to the shop and get a flat belt , rather than a vee belt, for your spare. So whats the difference ?

And.. for those less mechanically minded, it's my guess that way more people who have never looked at a VW engine before will figure out (and on the side of the road maybe) how to change a flat belt that is tensioned with a tension adjuster, than a vee belt that is tensioned with shims that you cant even see.

thank you uber kafer for your in put ill have a good look at this belt system again it seems to be the best one thanks again

Here is a pic of my recently installed MST pulley system. I chose it to go sand seal and it has solved an annoying leak my engine had.
A few thousand kilometres on thisone so far and no issues. The previous one was a BMD serpentine pulley that I modified the tensioner pulley by using a second hand tensioner pulley from a Mazda that I had laying around. It had done 30,000kms without any issues.

love the engine hope you dont mind if i repost on my VW site?

What type of dizzy is that??

and yeah I wouldn't waste my money on one of those ricer looking belt thingies

from a man with a ricer engine in his German car

yeah my $500 engine came with a ricer 5rib belt .

Nice work Ian

look its lovely . I know which one I would have

Are you going to race that one Ian? How many kilowobblies does it have?

Quote:

Originally posted by ian.mezz yeah my $500 engine came with a ricer 5rib belt .