Thanks to the timing of this thread, I've decided that I'll be going with new kryptonite... I mean Kevlar... belts for my re-assembly. Order placed from Rennbay.

 

Yea....I ordered one tonight too.

 

FWIW, the 951's dont make as much contact with the pistons as you would think. I guess its barely an interference engine.


I had a belt break before and cranked it to all hell. Put a new belt on and drove it for 3 years that way. If the valved did contact the pistons on that car, it didnt do much.

 

I bought the car with a broken belt and bent valves.

Rebuilt the Powerhaus "race" head. Which had already been milled to 8:5:1

 

hopefully you can save it.

 

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!


Have not driven it yet. But it starts and purs like a kitten with the new rennbay belt!

 

Outstanding, congrats!!!!

 

 

!!

 

Great!
finally got power steering again too...and new vacuum hoses installed..mostly

 

Good report!

I'm going Kevlar with my next one which will be on there soon - that is, of course, as soon as I can get my AC/Alt. belt to stop squealing like a stuck pig for the drive up to Steinel's.

 

Fingers crossed! I drove it around the block and all seemed fine. Then Jeska took the car to a class this afternoon downtown......hope it really keeps working!!


Rick, you should come dive it to compare it to yours!

 

So what caused the belt failure?

 

At this point it looks like just a bad belt.

I replaced every roller, tensioner and water pump last time and all were still working perfectly.

 

On the bright side, at least it wasnt a bonehead mistake on your part. I bent my valves when I replaced everything with the new water pump being pro-active and all and a stud came out unexpectadly. When I put it back in I didnt put in far enough. The balance belt contacted and over two days of driving shredded so much that material got under the timing belt. It slipped off and the car died just after I parked it in the garage. I cranked it a few times only guaranteeing I would bend valves.

Back on the road now but almost finished assembly with the lower balance shaft pulley assembled backwards. arrrgh! Caught that and she runs great. Cleaning all the carbon off the pistons no doubt helped and the guy told me did a bit of extra work on the valve job for better flow. Now I just need to get the turbo boosting properly with that tial wastegate that's sitting around.

I have a new timing belt no now but I'm tempted to go with the kevlar belt next time.