Help re RX7 belts
 

Hi
i have a 1985 RX7 12A engine that i have recently purchased.

My car has only one belt installed - the alternator belt? This does loop past the water pump puley and does drive the fan - but there are other pulleys unused that look like they ought to have belts attached also.

The RX7 Haynes manual shows a water pump belt and an air pump belt (i do not have air con installed) - my car engine has no air pump installed - is this correct or is there a valid reason for no air pump being installed on the car. I read somewhere that the air pump was merely for emmissions purposes, presumably to blow air into the exhaust gasses to dilute them in some way?

So in short is my car ok with just the one belt installed? It runs fine but possibly runs a little hotter than i would like - with the temp gauge in the upper half to three quarters full scale most of the time.

Any comments or help would be appreciated. Thanks.

its fine all u need to run is 1 belt on the alt water pump and main pulley . but over time and with higher hp applications this belt tends to slip so u might want to lookinto agetting a dual alternater pulley and running 2 belts to prevent slipping and possibly losing your water pump

You can dump the air pump if you aren't worried about emissions, I believe.

You only have a belt that drives the water pump? So I'd assume it's coupled to the alternator and driving both the alt and the water pump? The fan is directly coupled to the drive shaft on a 12A, so the belt gets its driving tension from that pulley.

A 1/2-3/4 temp gauge isn't good unless they have the gauge's calibrated differently in '80's. I'd suspect that your pump isn't getting enough flow through the jacket because the belt is slipping, although there are other possibilities. Can you get a thermometer on it? Have you changed the coolant out? Is the pump working?

Try poking around http://www.wankel.net/%7Ekrwright/ca...80_manual.html, chapter 3's on cooling and gives some decent pictures of the belt system on the car. (And if you can post a shot of you bay, it might clear some of my confusion)

I take that back. I'm pretty sure this is not the case, but I don't have any info, so I'll just stick foot-in-mouth.

its fine the way you have it but make sure your e shaft water pump and alternator pullys are clean and not rusted or you will go through belts like crazy but i would clean and repaint the e shaft and water pump pullys and get a duel sheave alternator pully they are only 20 bucks and help out alot

you dont need the air pump for the engine to run properly i would get rid of all the crap permanately unless you have problems getting inspection stickers or live in california there kinda strick out there
as far as it running hotter than usual try resetting the timing to stock unless your racing the car sometimes that helps a little
and definately get the radiator rodded out and put a cooler thermostat in it your engine will last a little longer also for good insurance change the thermostat every year its cheap to do and you dont have to be a tech to do it ...good luck with your 7:rock: