A little help here,

Trying to swap a FD alternator into my s5.

The Issue I am having is, when the alternator is bolted up I am not able to get the belt on.

The I try to lower the alternator it is making contact with the Water pump housing.

Is it possible I have the wrong alternator? I did not read anything about using longer belts, or any other modifcations.

Pics of Alternator and where it makes contact:

 

photos of alternator

 

What pulley are you using. Worst comes to worst get a longer belt. Is that an aftermarket pump? Cast poorly?

 

How close is the belt to fitting?

It looks like the casting is pretty rough and could be ground down to help you out.

Tom

 

The alternator needs a bearing spacer on the shaft to bring the pulley out enough as to not rub on the casing of the alt.(pulley needs to be FC 2 belt pulley,17mm bore)
Another thing is that you need the washerlike spacer on the waterpump to fit the fd alt to the waterpump casing.
You can file the location where the bolt goes on the waterpump so that the FD alt can get bolted on,but you only can put the alternator down so far,then it hits the waterpump casing.You can fix this with new belts that can be sized to allow you to do this.
The Bracket needs to allow the alignment of the belts to the waterpump and crank pulley,keeping them straight and true to the new FD alternator but not allowing it to be set 'cockeyed" so that it will rip the belt off due to misalignment of the belt.
Banzai-Racing may have a alternator bracket they sell ..or you can look at the ones that guys have made by doubling the bottom of the bracket at the pump to bring the bracket out to fit properly to the alt and not have it set funny.
There are more threads on this as it is not a new mod to do so you can research this further with a little perseverance.

 

I was planning to use the mazdatrix FD pulley.

The belt is about 1" away from fitting.

I was aware I had to have a spacer on the shaft for the pulley to clear the alternator casing, but no where did I read anyone running longer belts with the FD alternator?

 

well since the belt is about one inch from fitting,then try a longer belt for ***** and giggles.
You should run 2 belts with an airpump delete system anyways for maximum waterpump pulley contact.
Bring your old one to Napa..ask them to sell you one one inch longer.
If it fits good,then buy the other one!

 

Our dual belt FD alt pulley has the spacer machined into the rear. Pulleys & Belts (86-91 RX-7)

 

I will be ordering this kit from Banzai.

I am just worried the belts that come with it will still be too short. If so I will source longer belts and give that a try.

thx for the help

 

kit from banzai worked fine for me

 

If you already have the Mazdatrix pulley, which it looks like you do from your picture, you don't need the Banzai kit. You just need longer belts. I made the mistake of getting stock belts as well when I switched to a 626 Alt. The FD/626 alt. is physically larger so it won't go down low enough to get the stock belts on before it hits the water pump. I used the Mazdatrix pulley but somewhere missed that I needed a spacer. I ground off some material on the alt. casing 'cause I thought since it wasn't the OEM part( I got a Remy from Rockauto) the casting was thicker. Oh well it's working fine with a single belt at the moment.

Long story short. Get longer belts.

 

For future reference, the S5 and S4 have very different castings. The mounting location of the alternator has a different angle, which causes the interference.



Here is an FD alt mounted on an S4, you can see that is sits all the way down.







I will get some pics installed on a S5 when I get a chance.