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85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II
88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)
www.fieroking.com

My trip the other day to Autozone to check out tensioners was productive. I found a tensioner with the mounting spacing within .084" of the two holes I wanted to use and the right general shape (and it came with a 6 rib pulley too!).


Now the holes in the block are M10 and the holes in the tensioner are smaller, so I went to the bolt bin and found some studs with a smaller thread and put them in the block.


Install the tensioner so you can see how close it is to fitting:



I little file work to the insides of both holes:


Now it bolts on:


Between the mounting studs and the block, there isn't much more room for it to pull into the block:


So I check where the pulley is in relationship with another one. Stock LS4 pulley from the head (focus on the point of the first rib to on the left - its just under 2 5/8"):


The new tensioner (right at 2 5/8" - this is very, very close. I could remove some material on the block to pull this in so it is perfect):


Then I pulled the tensioner to check range of travel. This is the only thing I am not super thrilled about, as the travel is limited and not the full range of motion for the tensioner, but it might still have sufficient travel to work.


Here is a nice visual showing the idler pulley not sticking out past the water pump (except its bolt head):


Then it was time for some cutting on the water pump to make room for the pulley relocation. I used a saws all for the 4 cuts:
First cut from the topside:


Here you can see the piece has been removed the two cuts from the bottom that allowed it to separate:


4th cut to remove more material from the near vertical section:


Grab the angle grinder with a 36 grit flapper disk and smooth things so it doesn't look like this area was modified. Taking this extra step to clean things up really helps with the visual appeal of the swap and only takes time (not $$$ - unless you are paying someone to do it).





Then it was time to throw a belt on to show the belt path and check for clearance. It just barely clears... by raising the alternator pulley higher, this clearance will be increased to an acceptable level:



Then I decided to take some pictures of the available clearance in the car - its hard to tell anything by this pic:


I needed a reference tool so I could better visualize if the tensioner would fit. So I used this scale. The position of it relative to the water pump bolts and center of the pulley is critical:


It just barely fits!:



On to the alternator... using a piece of wood and some wire I was able to hang the alternator in the general area of where it needs to be and the red lines indicate a potential mounting method. What I like about this mounting method is the belt can be installed/removed w/o removing the alternator (power cable does need to come off):




With the alternator now higher than the original pulley, there is plenty of belt clearance to the body of the water pump:



To make sure the alternator is above the frame rail, I checked the car using the water pump bolts as reference points and then placed this yard stick at the elevation of the frame rail... lots of room!


Here is how far the mounting tabs are from the water pump pulley:


Here is the distance from the pulley to the frame rail. Since the alternator is a few inches higher, it doesn't mean anything, but thought it good to show it anyway:


This tensioner and alternator location are showing some signs of promise. Now I am waiting on the M10 x 1.5 x 170mm bolts (the ones I previously ordered were M12 by my mistake)...

I am still going to keep looking for a more compact tensioner, but for $35 and 2 minutes with the file, this current one is very basic/simple and quite promising.

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 08-06-2014).]

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 08-08-2014).]