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I was looking into Belt Wrap Kits (BWK) and I noticed I see a lot of kits with the bracket (for reinforcement purposes probably) but I have also seen some kits that do it without the bracket.
I can imagine that without a bracket is much easier to do service where you need to remove either the supercharger or serpentine belt.
Some information about the "bracketless" BWK, its translated from German
What distinguishes my solution:
- My kit doesn't stand out
- Not one of the screws is loaded in shear, bending stress is kept within limits
- The screw on the double deflection pulley - which is already subject to a borderline load - is not additionally loaded
- If the holder is installed correctly, it is impossible for the additional deflection roller to run skewed (!!)
- Nothing needs to be dismantled to change the belt.
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In the last picture is the "Shardul Metha", "VRP", "DTK" kit.
In my opinion, the kit has 3 major disadvantages:
1. The screw of the double deflection pulley, which is already heavily loaded, is even more heavily loaded.
2. The many tolerances can cause the idler pulley to misalign, which will manifest itself as damaged or shredded belts.
3. The kit must be almost completely disassembled to replace/remove one or both belts.
As someone who has a BWK on this engine in a really tight engine bay (R170), I can tell you that serviceability is a real issue. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the bracket adds stability to the entire system. I am sure the materials are strong enough to support the added pulley without the bracket, but the bracket supports both pulleys by minimizing deflection.
With the left side of the bracket notched it's an easy belt swap by simply leaving in place and loosening both bracket bolts and swivelling the bracket upwards. My original Shardul kit didn't have the notch so I added it later on.
I have a Creative Steel kit. It does have the slot. It's still impossible to change that belt without removing my upper core support and pulling the cooling fan out. Sounds trivial until you understand how much work is involved with that. If I moved like the wind, and had power tools, I might be able to change the SC belt in a little over an hour. In the dark, raining on the side of the road? Yeah, not funny.
I run a 20lb tensioner and that cross brace adds a lot more strength and stability in my opinion.Mine is a Creative Steel and I notched it and modded the idler bracket for more wrap around the blower pulley and also added a 100 mm idler pulley.
In E-class or CLS you probably have a bit more room for belt removal. I also don't have to remove the fan for supercharger and/or serpentine belt removal
Nemiro yea my fan stays in place for belt removal.
Yeah, it's pretty tight in there. This is before I added the BWK, which made a belt replacement completely out of the question. At this point I was running a stock lower and a 77mm upper pulley. I have since switched to a 180mm lower and a stock upper, so BWK is a little less necessary.
A friend and I considered the "American style" BWKs and we (automotive engineers) found some vulnerabilities.
- The serviceability wasn't really required at that style. You need to pull of the front bracket to service the belts.
- Tolerances in production were not sufficiently considered, so the belt can (not neccessarily) run at an angle and can be shredded (see several posts in different forums and facebook groups).
- the additional force on the doubler idler pulley screw did not please us.
- shipping to Germany with customs and VAT were very expensive,
so we devided to design our own BWK considering all the vulnerabilities of the existing design.
I can tell you from first hand experience. I have two e55s one with a belt wrap kit and one without. Both have the same clutched 77 mm pulley with tune and I DON'T HAVE belt slip on neither one. I did a lot of searching before purchasing my last super charger belt when I recently installed a 77 mm pulley.
QUOTE=nd-photo.nl;8722856]Thx for the input!
Would be cool if @VictoryRoadPerformance (or another creator) is able to comment on the brace and the function behind it[/QUOTE]
I can tell you from first hand experience. I have two e55s one with a belt wrap kit and one without. Both have the same clutched 77 mm pulley with tune and I DON'T HAVE belt slip on neither one. I did a lot of searching before purchasing my last super charger belt when I recently installed a 77 mm pulley.
QUOTE=nd-photo.nl;8722856]Thx for the input!
Would be cool if @VictoryRoadPerformance (or another creator) is able to comment on the brace and the function behind it
02-15-2023, 07:32 AM
