Tim i have the reichard racing idler on myne, i have the dreaded chirping noise but i think thats the tensioner, wich im ordering the stell upgraded tensioner.

 

I have replaced 6 I think, I forget. I need to change the one I have on there now. They seem to go out about every 3,000 miles for me.

I have tried doing different things, but the idler always fail. It sucks. I talk with Vortech a few years ago they pointed me to a speed shop saying that they have had look with fixing the problem. Go Vortech thanks for the help:shakehead

I still have the stock blowoff valve does anyone think that it has always acted up; which caused added pressure for the idler?

Who knows

 

try running NMRA renegade with that setup...let me know how many passes you get with real belt tension. IF you get 1 weekend on that idler your doing good.

the fix is easy and it increases belt wrap...but some things I will keep to myself but I would be happy to modify your bracket and supply you with a new idler that will take all the abuse you can throw at it.
Dave

 

Dave i have the chirping sound or cricket sound, tensioner??? im going to order the upgraded stell tensioner kit anything else i need to go with it.

 

Get me some more info on that Dave....

 

I figured out what I am going to do. Below is a quick drawing of my new idler. I took my blower bracket to work today and had the nub that the vortech idler sat on milled flat. It was actually just to clean up the carnage above. One end of the thing below will screw into my block seating against the altenator. On the shaft I will use a 2203 double row bearing pressed into (retained by snap rings) am 60MM pulley. The other side of my pulley shaft will stick out through the blower bracket and use an M8 nut to clamp the blower bracket. The length of the 17MM dia shaft is the distence between the part of the bracket I machined and the alternator. I think it is going to work great; what do you guys think?

Tim

 

Thats exactly like prochagers setup I never had a problem with procharger one , I think it needs like a 3/4 inch spacer to line up right but dont hold me to that

 

Can you describe any sounds made before the pulley breaks. I just bought a T-trim 96 cobra, just wondering what to look for!

 

just a slight whirring sound that goes up and down w/ rpm. The thing that pis$es me off is I should have known better....

 

re

We used to have the same problems with pulleys on a 2.0 4 cyl.
on the timing belt(turning 10k+)
We went into an industrial supply catalog and found high speed/high load
rollers used in manufacturing custom machines. never fried another bearing.
Might be worth digging into the supply books.

 

Make sure you check the speed rating for that 2203 bearing. A regular double row angular contact bearing has a max speed rating of about 12,000-15,000 rpm. The 60mm (2.36") idler with a 6.625" crank pulley will spin at 19,600 rpm when the motor is at 7000 rpm and 21,000 @ 7500. Just something to think about.

 

I am going to use a 2203 non-angular contact bearing. The one I speced out has a MAX rpm of 24000. The bearing was the biggest concern I had in light of the above failure. I basically designed the entire thing around the bearing. This is what vortech should have done after the first failures years ago......

Anyways here is my prototype:
I used brass because it could be cut fairly quick @ work. (govt. job) The pulley is just for mock up purposes. There is no groove or shoulder on the brass shaft yet; I need to put it on the car and fit / measure everything, then add something to retain the bearing. I will definatley post every detail until it is on the car. What do you guys think?

 

Looks really good. I had a vortech idler bearing fail not too long ago myself. I was going to work on a solution like you but I've been thinking turbo recently.

What was the exact brand name and part number for the bearing? I'd like to take a look at what you're using.

 

I think it is a SKF 2203 ETN9. I have my notes at work. I just cannot remember anything as far as bearings and what not. My current job is a Maintenance Engineer; I probably have about 20,000,000 bearings I am responsible for. It sucks but, makes projects like this nice though.

Tim

 

Just wondering how you turned out with your problem. I have the same setup, and what came to mind for me if I ever tore up the bracket like you did, is to buy one of the small bearing centering spacers from Vortech (the one on the back side of the idler pulley). Then, mill the bracket down flat, and if necessary mill the Vortech piece down some more. Hey, it worked on the back side of the pulley. Why wouldn't it on the front?

And it would be a cheap fix. Although I like where you're going with your fix. How did it come out?

I apparently have a Gen 1 bracket and idler pulley. The pulley measures 2.25 x 1.25. Vortech's Gen 2 bracket assembly is the same bracket (although different part number...?), but the idler pulley has changed. It now carries the number V4FK116-021, and is 2.5 x 1.5. That would add some extra belt wrap, and slow down the bearing rpm as well.

 

Just wondering how you turned out with your problem. I have the same setup, and what came to mind for me if I ever tore up the bracket like you did, is to buy one of the small bearing centering spacers from Vortech (the one on the back side of the idler pulley). Then, mill the bracket down flat, and if necessary mill the Vortech piece down some more. Hey, it worked on the back side of the pulley. Why wouldn't it on the front?

And it would be a cheap fix. Although I like where you're going with your fix. How did it come out?

I apparently have a Gen 1 bracket and idler pulley.

On my 97GT the idler took a crap and ruined the bracket; I replaced it with the Gen 3 bracket. I pieced together the kit that is on my cobra. I bought my bracket new and could not believe it when I pulled it out of the packaging. It was basically the same chunk of $h!t that failed before. I can't believe Vortech is still selling that junk. I called them and I was told that "there is only one bracket for my car" and, well I was holding it in my hand. I played the game again and lost.....

Here is where I am at now. (not too much further along, busy @ work, and X-mass)

I have a basic design of what I am going to make. After the idler failure I bought a new idler from Vortech. I also bought the Reichard Racing idler, which is a complete joke also. I will get into why I will never buy another part from Reichard Racing later.

The bearings that are in the vortech 4FK016-021 Idler are SKF 6001-2RSH. The limiting speed rating on them is only 17000rpms! The 2RSH part of the bearing number means 1 standard friction or contact seal on both sides. At 7000rpms this idler is spinning about 21K rpm and change. If Vortech would spend literally $1.50 more per bearing and get the 6001-2RSL bearings I would bet money that idler failures would be eliminated even with the current design. The 2 RSL part of the bearing number means it has 2 light contact of low friction seals; the limiting speed is 30000rpms! (yes I said 30K) The seals make all the difference. I think why the idlers fail is that the seals start to melt around the edges from the friction, and the grease migrates out of the bearing. The next thing you know, poof, no more idler.

I will finish this later.....gotta presentation to get ready...more details on my design to come....

I have changed my bearing I am going to use because I was looking at the wrong limiting speeds when I made the selection. The double row bearings (including Reichard’s) do not have the rpm capability that 2 deep groove ball bearings have. I am going to use the same configuration I have above but with 2 SKF 6002-2RSL bearings. The limiting speed rating is 26000rpm. With a 7” crank pulley and a 60mm idler I am around 23-24K rpms if the engine hits 8000rpm. This is taking some time because I am also trying to get my 8-rib setup done at the same time.

As far as Reichard Racing goes…what a joke. When I bought the Vortech idler I also bought theirs. It does not even fit my car! The ID of the bearing is way to big to fit my bracket. I have been calling them for months to return the idler. I leave messages, no callbacks; I call and the mailbox is full. I don’t care who you are or how nice you have been to someone, when you run a business; this type of behavior is unacceptable. Now, he!! will freeze over before I buy anything from them. I have a bad taste in my mouth from RR and I would advise anyone that may buy parts from RR that they might be great and potentially work fine but, there is a potential to feel the displeasure I am experiencing with the way they treat customers. In short F’em!
I am not trying to get anything free or rip them off; I just want my money back. It is there fault I got the wrong one in the first place.

If there are any RR people on here I invite you to PM me so this matter can be resolved. I will still never buy from you again but, I wont talk smack about you either.
Tim

 

Just subscribing for curiosities sake...since I'll be in the market soon.

 

Interesting stuff! I contacted Vortech a while back, and dug into the whole Gen 3 bracket thing deeply with them. The guy talked to one of his engineers, and came back with this to say: There are only 2 versions, not a "Gen 3" but a Gen 2. Version one was a piece of crap bracket with a 2.25 idler. Apparently that failed a lot (although mine hasn't). They upgraded it to a 2.5 idler, and call the kit the Gen 2. The bracket is the same. The only difference at ALL is the idler pulley size.

After looking very carefully into this, I have determined that the 2.5" idler is as big as will fit. The belt wrap is already very good on the blower pulley, so there's no need to go bigger... except that bigger would have slowed down the pulley some. Which would have increased it's bearing life. Vortech has a 3" smooth 8 rib plastic idler I was considering to use, but there just isn't any room for it.

Reichard makes one in aluminum, and supposedly uses better bearings. Other than being hard to reach, and behind on production, why don't you like Reichard? I thought his stuff was supposed to be pretty much top notch.

Here's some pictures of the 8 rib setup on my 97 Cobra, but please note that the stock 6 rib 2.25 Vortech idler pulley is still in place...

See the Vortech idler to factory idler clearance...

Vortech idler to Reichard blower pulley clearance...

My new 8 rib GI Joe/Pontisteve conversion...

Complete setup...

 

I updated above.

Tim

 

Yep, that would be frustrating! I know I tried for maybe 2 weeks to get ahold of them. The phone rang off the hook. I left emails with no response. But then one day, they answered the phone, and they knew exactly who i was and that I emailed them. Lets me know they know I'm trying to contact them.

I can't for the life of me understand why they would not want to do things differently, but maybe the guy is just trying to lay back and work easy. Who knows. He's helped a lot of people, and his stuff seems to be top notch... if you can get it.

There are 2 different bearing sizes. Mine takes the smaller .470 ID bearing.