lose accessory belts better fe

[yzfdallas]

I have a 03 civic and this weekend the i changed the timing belt along with the other accessory belts. well after i had everything together i turned no my ac and my new belt made a noise cause it was to loose, the noise when away after a few seconds, now i got to thinking, if taking the alternator belt off helps fe would having the accessory belts loose for the power steering the alternator and maybe the ac help with FE. Has anyone tried this? I know some cars have automatic belt tensioner but my Honda has a manual tensioners, so this may only work on certain cars. This may only be good for another 1/2 mpg to 1 mpg, at the most, increase (or even no increase) but every bit helps.

[cfg83]

yzfdallas -

That's the first I heard of that, but it sounds similar to an "underdrive pulley". I think the idea for an underdrive pulley is that it is smaller than stock, so the engine feeds less juice to the rest of the devices, including the battery.

Does this make sense? Is this right?

CarloSW2

[VetteOwner]

what?

how does a 2003 car still have manual belt tensioners?!?!? acuualy speaking of, how does a 03 car still have multiple belts?!?! first ive heard of this since it seem sliek every thing after id say 95ish has automatic tensioners...

new belts make noise from the sealant they put on em, it wears off, squeak goes away. having loose belts do nothing but eat up the belt (so you may save a quarterl on gas but spend $30 on a new belt) when it slips, theres friction, friction=heat, heat=bad for rubber parts cuz it leads to failure

the whole idea of an underdrive pulleys is its generally made out of aluminum, and usually a few inches smaller in diameter than the stock pulley. lighter mass, smaller diameter (works like gears, small gear driving large gear, lots of torue and dont need much power to turn the small gear. reverse the roles, it takes alot of force to turn the big gear thats drivign the small gear.) it frees up some wasted torque, thus more can go to the wheels so you have more available torque at a given speed/pedal travel/ rpm so you can do the same job as before but with less gas.

[yzfdallas]

[yzfdallas]

[GasSavers_Erik]

Yes - less tension would mean less spinning resistance.

The trick would be to find the least tension that would still keep the belt from slipping/wearing out quickly.

[Snax]

Seems like a bad idea to me. Get an underdrive set.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

Older civics had different belt tension specs for the fuel efficient model...

[VetteOwner]

Originally Posted by Snax

Seems like a bad idea to me. Get an underdrive set.

yea id go for underdrive... its askign for a bad time/noise when the belt slips/breaks...

that and temperature changes the elasticity and gripyness of the belt, so does reving the engine, (its why some cars belts squeal at idle but once they start accelerating it goes away, pulls the belt tight)

if it slips too much you can get a high speed glaze over the belt, which it coats the rubber in what feel liek a plastic layer, kinda like tryign to use a plastic shoppign bag as a belt...


huh i never knew they still use manual tentioners/multiple belts...you would think multipule belts would be worse for FE than single long belt...

[Hateful]

I think a loose alternator belt would deliver a weak spark and cause less FE and black smoke rolling out the exhaust.