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Gilmer Drive


Toddy415

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So has anyone actually had success running a gilmer drive setup?

Looks like most issues are from an over tightened belt or bad alignment. 

By the looks most people hate them. Is this hate from people that have had poor setups or are they actually shit?

Let me know if you have had a setup that has lasted and worked well.

Cheers

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I think the hate is when they are put on for aesthetic/noise reasons rather than practical ones. I can understand it if you need to run a supercharger without slippage, or the revs are getting so high that v belts will slip.

I imagine they could apply a lot of stress to components if not correctly tensioned as well..

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I've been involved with toothed belt drives mainly as primary drives on bikes. Alignment and tension are the critical things. Sizing for the HP put through them is also important. Bigger is usually better. Very easy to over tension them..

I've also done supercharger drives on bike engines - bikes and TQ's. There you need a bit of slippage. Back off at high revs and the blower inertia will pull the end off the crank if it can't slip. I've come round to using polyvee belts for blowers now. They've worked for me. Polyvee I've used to 13000 crank rpm.

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4 hours ago, ThePog said:

I think the hate is when they are put on for aesthetic/noise reasons rather than practical ones. I can understand it if you need to run a supercharger without slippage, or the revs are getting so high that v belts will slip.

I imagine they could apply a lot of stress to components if not correctly tensioned as well..

This. 

I drove a 1uz powered hiace once that had a $$$ custom gilmer drive on it. After about 40 seconds on the motorway I absolutely hated it , was extremely loud and I couldn't understand why someone would spend so much money making something worse on something that toyota made so well in the first place 

A guy I know who specializes in rotaries has fixed a few cars because of them, heaps of toasted alternator bearings and even crank bearings that have got worn from being cranked up to 11 million tightness 

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Of course.. Just make sure all of the pulleys line up straight.. 

I have a gillie kit minus the belt that I removed from my 12a..going back to v belt to get it all dialled. 

 

Then once I start doing some events it'll get a fresh gillie kit. But not over tightened. 

I've found with rotaries with a single v belt, you can get water pump slippage and overheating. 

 

A twin v belt would be ideal and much cheaper

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Side sharn slightly related

Boss has had a blown SB chev in a hot rod for years, and always runs the belt quite loose 

This is because when it all gets warm it grows enough to affect belt tension 

Apparently if you run it too tight it can snap the end off the crank  

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On bikes with a separate gearbox you set the tension cold so that you can get a 90 degree twist in the top run of the belt. When everything is hot you're lucky to get about 30 degrees twist.

Rather than a double  vee belt I'd use a polyvee. Lighter and for the same width total you've got a bigger load rating.

Way back in speedway TQ's it was chain driven blowers. Then once they got them working well, the odd end got broken off cranks. The next step was a double vee setup cos they realised some slippage was needed. Now - Polyvee all the way. Lighter and stronger for higher load capacity

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2 hours ago, Toddy415 said:

 

Can you set them up to not throw and chew out belts?

 

 

My brother has one on his 302 Capri, been on for a few years and I don't think he has had any issues. But he's probably only done like 5000 km in that time

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gilmore setups are not as reliable as a standard v or ribbed belt setup. 

if your not a fan of the noise there are plenty of kits to convert your motor to a 4 or 5 ribbed belt setup.

but i like the sound myself. 

with motors with a top mount blower setup the belt tension doesn't want to be alot because as the motor warms up the tension increases.

but if your pulleys are aligned good and not too much belt tension they work well and provide much more grip over a standard v belt.

although running a spare gilmore belt is a must do. As they wear over time and quality of belt can vary. but if its a weekend car and you have no other belt setup then its a cost affect way to get it sorted. 

well 95% of rotary's ive seen run them so they must be good right 

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From my experience , the rotary ones are overdone and kill alternators due to it. Used to pull the old motor to 10k  that would have the alternator doing in excess of 13k rpm / Water pump doing over 8k rpm.

When you look at sizing versus the standard pulleys can see how overcooked they are , New underdriven pulleys are v belt and will see alternator under 8k / WP maybe 5k prm at full noise.

Was cool for crusing around and nothing like that noise....Maybe trade again one day if i can find one of the old prototype 20mm sets.

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