Originally Posted by
el salvador
I've been led to believe the WD-40 Belt therapy is not the way to go. I could not justify the $$$$ for the K-Factory belts, however, at the suggestion of TM driver Dave Ehrlich, get some "Automotive grade" Belt Dressing, (for V-belts on real cars), and treat the back sides of all your belts. This did help my E4FS. He also recommended removing "All of the Bearings" from the car, and soaking them in Denatured Alcohol for 24 hours, then blow them out with compressed air and don't lube them with anything. Then carefully reassemble your car, run the belts as loose as you can get away with.
That's just the problem, they don't get any looser and there is no tension added at all via the belt tensioner. The belts are binding the front shaft. I free spin the side belt with no pinion and get maybe a second of rotation. I do that to my XRAY or TC3 and they spin for 5 to 10 seconds with the rotational mass of just the tires. I know its a different car, but it should roll much smoother than this. The current belts are 4 months old and have been raced and practiced with for countless hours. I tore the car down to parts, cleaned (including the bearings) and reassembled. No luck. These are really some of the coolest cars around, but the slaving loss I'm experiencing can't be dialed out. There is no negative tension adjustment to loosen the drive line. It seriously needs a belt with one or two more teeth on it to start with and one more tooth on the front and back pullies as well. I'd say its a fluke, but I have 2 of them and they're both the same. Running 21.5s, they just get driven down no matter how good the driver is and I've had the best locals drive them and tune on them in the search for performance. New belts aren't an option as I'm not willing to sink another $70.00 in parts into them at the moment. They really are the best handling cars.