March pulley set issue

[cal.cheesehead]

I have a 351w that I just installed in my New Unique chassis. When I built the engine I installed a very nice Mach pulley set. Standard rotation water pump. My problem is the frame narrows at the point where the alt is located. I have no room to tension my belt. I cannot go with a shorter belt. the alt. fan interfeers with the suppor breacket. Any suggestions? Thanks

[boilerrat]

I had the same problem as well. I don't have very much adjustment with the March pulley set and brackets. Summit sells a bracket for you to mount the altenator up top in front of the valve cover. I think for about 60 or 70 bucks. Billet aluminum. I had to play around with belt lengths until I found a happy medium. Good Luck.

[sllib]

I tried the lower bracket from March but the alt. hit the frame. I then called March, got the high-mount bracket but it wouldn't adjust, so I bought a longer adj. rod from Summit, hand measured for a belt and put it all together...right in the way of the water neck on my Vic. Jr. manifold. After many pieces of money I got it all straightened out, but I think I spent more time mounting the alt. than I did building the rest of the engine!!

[marcalan]

I ran into an issue with my march set up, I ended up changing the boss used on the water pump for the alternator bracket. You can try mounting the bracket to the alternator on the opposite side you have it now, it might help out.

[Tony Radford]

I don't understand why you guys have been having problems with the March set up. I put the upper mount on my car and it worked great. Is it the alternator? I'm running a GM one-wire alternator and I too have a Vic. Jr. intake. I had to remove it when I got the polished expansion tank and move the alternator to the opposite side. I never had any issue with belt adjustment.

[sllib]

My biggest "challenge" was to get the alt. far enough forward to get the valve covers off (I have solid roller lifters) from time to time. I used alt. mount tubes cut to fit as shims to move the alt. forward but was limited, shim-wise, by the pulley on the water pump side. Once that was all done I bought a 90 degree water neck from Cobra Earl's that adapted to a high rise GM-type filler that got my upper radiator hose over my fan belt. There might have been a simple fix to all this but hours spent staring at it and wafting cigar smoke to the automotive gods didn't reveal it to me!

[Tony Radford]

Thinking about it, perhaps it's the water pump. I'm running a high volume polished Holley. It's pretty deep and probably puts the bracket in a different place.

[sllib]

I'm using a Edelbrock Victor pump; they're probably about the same depth. Some day I'm going to buy a nice FE-style surge tank for my engine, then I can start this all over again!!

[Rick Parker]

I think Kirkham makes a bracket for this.

[Tony Radford]

I installed a polished expansion tank during the Christmas holidays. What a royal pain, but very nice. The kirkham tank does solve a lot of installation issues.