Bad night for the boosted FRS last night...
 

I was driving home on the 110S interchange to the 105W last night when I downshifted hard into 3rd taking it to redline to pass someone. I noticed a weird abnormal persistent noise shortly afterwards but wasn't sure what it was. Shortly afterwards I noticed the battery indicator light came on but the car still had a normal amount of power, able to go 75-80mph without issue. I considered pulling over but I didn't want to do so on the freeway nor did I want to get off at any of the ghetto Inglewood exits. I decided to go another exit or two (1-2 more miles) taking the 405S interchange to Rosecrans. That was when I noticed the water temp in the very H range and kept it in more less neutral to cruise and limp off the freeway for another ~1 miles. That was when a whole bunch of other lights came on (traction control, check engine, etc) coming off the exit. Power steering went out, but I was still able to propel it forward into a strip mall area right off the freeway. Coolant was all over the engine bay. I used my iPhone light and I was able to see the accessory belt was no longer on (although the Rotrex supercharger belt was still okay). Then I called AAA to get it towed the last 4 miles into my garage. It is sitting in my garage now and I'm trying to figure out what to do for my next step. Any ideas where to start? I'm guessing the accessory belt slipped off after the hard downshift and the water pump no longer worked so that's why it overheated? I have another car I can use to get to work tomorrow so I do not need to rush it in for someone to look at because I don't know a mechanic who I'd bring it into for this type of application/problem. I'm running a Kraftwerks C30 kit and haven't had a problem until now after about 10k miles. :mad0260::mad0260::mad0260:

I think by timing belt you mean the accessory belt, sound like it failed and the alternator/Bat light came on, then with nothing to drive the waterpump the car overheated. PS still worked because its electronic, but likely failed when there was insufficient power to drive it as the battery was running everything at that point.

Best case would have been to pull over once the alt/bat light came on

Best case scenario now is it didn't overheat to the point of warping heads and you will be fine with a new accessory belt and refilling of the coolant. Can you tell where the coolant came from? Did it vent from the cap/overflow?

I would hope your referring to the serpentine belt which runs the alternator and water pump, and has nothing to do with the timing. Which sounds like that.
But I would go through and feel all the pulleys and make sure none are seized up, if the all spin freely a new serpentine belt should fix it. Hopefully the coolant that you saw everywhere is just from the overflow since it was so hot and not from the water pump.

My bad the accessory/serp belt not the timing belt.

No worries.
Where was the coolant coming from?

Attachment 101226
From what I can tell I think the coolant was coming from that hole on the reservoir cause it was so hot. The actual coolant was still at the max line so probably didn't lose too much coolant yet.


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Attachment 101231
You can see the plastic alternator cover melting from the friction from the slipped belt here.


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Yeah I would just go through and check and make sure all your pulleys are all free spinning with no binds. Top off the coolant and throw a new belt on and fire it up.

Check that the alternator pulley rotates freely.

From the sequence you describe, it could be that your alternator seized a bearing (initial odd noise and charging system light), causing the belt to overheat and eventually break (temperature going nuts and power steering failure some time after the initial event). The fact that the alternator's belt cover is melted says that something bad happened there to cause heat. A simple broken belt wouldn't do that.

Belt came lose started to make noise.
Top under cover moved over and just touched the cover enough to rub it and wear/melt it (nice arch hole not a random heat sink mark)
Not enough friction alternator not charging and get light.
Water pump not driven car over heats.
Power steering is electric (not belt driven pump) but drain on system drops power below required.
Belt eventually worked right off pulleys.


Best case = Fix belt check coolent all good.
Worst case = Damage (possibly major) to engine from overheating.

How long has the supercharger system been installed? I'd also check the belt tensioner. Beyond the above recommendations to check all pulleys/bearings, I also wonder if the belt itself just failed, or if a weak/faulty tensioner allowed it to come loose at high rpm.

Doesn't seem like the alternator pulley is seized as it can freely rotate, but with the expected amount of weight. Here's a photo of the inside of the pulley cover. Any recommendations on brands for new belts? OEM or GATES?

Attachment 101280


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I would call the vendor you bought the kit from and go with their recommendation.

I use a Gates blue belt. Like $65 or rock auto.

that's the best case for the car... not so good case for the driver if he stopped in that area. LOL.

110/105 interchange area is straight hood. thats where you see all them stupid ass donuts and skid marks on the freeways from their stupid ass "crenshaw takeover" bs.

Had a flat just outside downtown Detroit one time.
Needless to say I destroyed a tire and rim!

LOL, I feel for you when your in a bad area and don't want to stop... but you drive with the needle pegged in H your going to have a bigger problem (ie cylinder head warpage) more times than not.




Another option for next time is call the police and say your car broke down and your blocking traffic you need a tow truck and assistance immediately.

I got stuck in a ditch with my 240sx one time in the mountains, and the tow truck guys for that area were really lazy and didn't want to come, Cop came out and he called it in and told them they better get their ass up their in 20 minutes or he would fine them... sure enough 15 minutes later they showed up LOL.

Did you boil the coolant from the overheat? If so you could have easily warped the heads.

I always pictured California to be one big episode of Full House, that sounds rough.

I bought another belt (Gates - non-racing) but decided to just slip the OEM one back on since I didn't notice any real damage to it. Also, it is a bit of a pain in the ass to replace the accessory belt because I'd have to remove the Kraftwerks /Rotrex blower assembly to get at and remove/replace the belt. I was careful to ensure the belt was seated properly before cranking. But unfortunately immediately after cranking the engine back up, the accessory belt fell off again. Must be a pulley seizing or misalignment issue. Any further thoughts?

Did the tensioner feel weird?

Yes. Time to stop guessing and get out the wrenches. That's the only way you're going to get this fixed.

Found the problem. It wasn't the tensioner. It was this OEM idler pulley. The right most idler pulley in the figure below.
Attachment 101636


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Looks crooked.. Bearing failure? Cross threaded?

Bad night for the boosted FRS last night...
 

Yeah it is crooked. I'm guessing it is bearing failure because of the torque/stress from being adjacent to the crank/supercharger adapter. I don't think it'd be a cross threading issue because I was really careful installing the Kraftwerks bracket onto the engine mount (or in this case is also one of the idler pulley holes).

i can believe its the adapter and/or engine movement.

if its only the adapter, then the problem could be something that just happens over time with added stress from the kit/adapter.

if its a combination, cusco/perrin/etc. engine mounts might alleviate some of the stress, and maybe it won't happen again.

hopefully it doesn't go out again, but if it does, it probably won't be for a while. either way if it does happen again, and is more frequent than bearing failure on non-SC twins, it might be a useful consideration for other owners in terms of additional maintenance.

out of curiosity, how many miles/how long have you had your kit?

Wait, how could it be engine movement? Isn't every pulley directly attached to the engine block in some fashion? The engine could do a summersault in the engine bay without putting stress on the belts.

Edit: Motor mounts are a fine upgrade, but no use spending money for the wrong reasons.

Just because something is bolted on doesn't means its infallible. I'm counting engine movement as a possibility because everything is vibrating each time the motor is on, and even though things are bolted down, there's an inherent amount of stress applied and an inherent level of tolerance observed before failure any part fails. To me, it seems plausible that adding extra stress and movement from a supercharger kit with a small adapter bolted into the immediate vicinity of the failed part could have brought it over the tolerance threshold. Could I be wrong? Of course! I'm not saying thats exactly what the issue was here, I'm just saying I can believe it. One thing to consider is whether the tolerance threshold is so high that any movement in that vicinity is a non-issue. I don't know, I'm not an engineer, but I can't see why I'd rule it out.

Bad night for the boosted FRS last night...
 

I had a little over 8000 miles on the Kraftwerks kit (16,500 total miles on the car) when this failure occurred. Coming up on about the 1 year mark for the install.


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The new OEM idler pulley came in this week and finally found some time to work on the car today due to the President's day holiday. Getting to the idler pulley was not as bad as I feared. I simply removed all the bolts off the kraftwerks bracket except for the one on the lower right (when viewed from the front), removed the kraftwerks tensioner pulley, removed some of the piping on the blower, and I was able to simply rotate the entire assembly to the side. This will come in handy when I decide to go with the high boost setup.

Regardless, it appears as though I didn't order all the necessary parts. I'd need to wait a couple more days to get another idler pulley cover (3rd photo below). Here are some photos of the failed bearings in the OEM idler pulley. Obviously, the new idler pulley is on the left and the failed part is on the right.

Attachment 102754Attachment 102755Attachment 102756

I wouldn't think engine mounts would have any appreciable effect on bearing life for a belt pulley bearing. If that were the case, we'd see way more bearing failures. I understand the logic, I just think its a stretch. From what I've seen, I'd chalk it up to a bad bearing from the factory, or something faulty to do with the initial install finally reared its head after so many miles. Maybe the pulley was dropped and pitted a race, or it didn't have sufficient lube, who knows.

Curious. Before the failure... Did you get any funny burning rubber smells? I'm still all stock but see black belt powder around the motor. The smell only happens on hard drives.

Thinking there was a batch of pulleys...

Not that I've noticed. The indication I got what an irregular sound immediately after my hard down-shift to 3rd from ~60mph and the battery light that came on shortly after that when the alternator stopped charging the battery with the accessory belt coming off. I replaced the bad idler pulley with a new one (along with a new OEM belt) and have been driving on it for a few weeks now without any further issues. I did have to file down a burr that was caused by the bad idler pulley making a groove on the block after it failed -- without it doing so the new idler couldn't spin freely. Hopefully it didn't screw up any tight tolerances from the factory (I doubt it since I barely filed down anything).

Thanks mit_peid...

That kind of stinks that those things just let go when they die.
Most pulleys just scream for a while making it obvious that the grease or bearings are done.

I'm following another thread by Neal from EQ Tuning in Fairfield.
His metal idler pulley died just like yours over the weekend. Same symptoms, than boom, side of the road.

I think there's only two of them (idler pulleys right in the middle of the belt configuration). The one that self destructed was the one on the drivers side. Yours too?

- exE36M3

Yes, there are a total of 3 idler pulleys, one V grooved one by the tensioner and two smooth metal ones closer to the crank. The one that failed on my car was the smooth metal closest to the crank, more on the driver side (although both are technically on the driver side).

Do you have a link to the other thread? I'm interested in reading up on what happened over there.


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I would recommend replacing all of the idler pulleys and the belts. Note how many miles you clocked after the FI kit was installed and plan to replace them before you get to that many miles again. That almost had to be noisey or misaligned before the total failure. Increase you inspection rate so that you can catch it next time.

The motor mounts have nothing to do with this.

I can vouch for this. Straight hood near dem parts.