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I bought a used ECS kit off a member on here. HUGE MISTAKE.
This thing looked like it was ripped off the car and thrown in boxes. Bolts/brackets missing, fuel pump spraying out the side when tested, broken bolts, etc...
Most parts were replaced and when the car was first started there was a slight intermittent shudder. Turns out the tensioner had issues. Bolt cracked almost completely in half. Replaced bolt and used a lot of Loctite. Problem solved.....we thought.
Car is finally on the road, plan was to drive to tuner staying out of boost of course and never going over 1500 rpm.
After about 30 min of driving, at around 40 mph on the feeder rd the belt fails. I hear it binding almost immediately so I kill the car as quick as possible.
Belt got wrapped up on steering rack lines, twisting them and also got snagged on the IW balancer to the point of ripping one of the retaining bolts out.....
Haven't been able to tear into it yet. Has anyone ever heard of something like this happening? I figured a belt failing was just an inconvenience. This is way worse.
Could this be a tensioner failing issue? Or is just a freak occurrence?
From driver side. 6 rib setup with 10% 8-rib.
I circled one of the damaged PS lines and the bolt pulled from the crank pulley.
Yeah, buying a used kit isn't a great idea given how cheap you can get a new one for
But... it only looks like one power steering line is bent and one bolt in the balancer. Hardly major IMO. Not uncommon to break 1 belt figuring out alignment, etc.
I don't have a ton of experiencing snapping belts but the one I did break when first got my car just snapped and flew out under the car, left a mark on the underside of the hood but nothing like what happened to you there. I would think that is not typical for what happens when a belt snaps.
That's what I'm thinking too. IW said those protruding bolts aren't totally necessary anyway. If that's the case then hopefully its just a matter of figuring out why the belt snapped and replacing the hard PS lines.
So before putting any miles on it did you check alignment? Check for belt walk? Check tensioner was set and working properly? Those are all things that should be done before driving the car around.
Let us know if we can help, buying a used kit is a gamble, sometimes people will ship them to us so we can go threw the entire thing and make sure everything is right. Unfortunately that can eat up the savings of going used though.
So before putting any miles on it did you check alignment? Check for belt walk? Check tensioner was set and working properly? Those are all things that should be done before driving the car around.
Yes that was checked. Car idled for a while as well as careful test driving around the block a few times then checked again. Everything looked fine. Until after about 30 min of straight driving under 1500 rom.
i ran a gates belt for 7,000 miles with out an adjustment. Changed pulleys and the dayco belt lasted zero miles. Died on the Dyno. Put another gates belt on and it's still on there.
The most common mistake I have seen on used kits is that the .070" spacers that go behind the main bracket are not installed. They are used because many aftermarket water pumps are set to that depth without the spacers.
01-11-2017, 02:10 PM
Lost a belt and it did some major damage....
