I'm putting together a salvage yard motor to do some circle track racing. My fuel pump and power steering are mounting on the rear bellhousing, so the only thing I need on the front of the engine is a water pump.

Carb setup if that matters.

What's the cheapest / easiest way to run an water pump only setup on an LS engine ?


Thanks !

 

Mount an idler pulley and spacer in one of the bolt holes on the drivers side of the motor or head. route the belt over that then under the WP pulley like the camaro, corvette, etc.

 

Did some googling after your description and found this .. is it about what you mean ? Looks like this one is on the passenger side though ...

 

I think he means use the present tensioner on the passenger side, then put an idler (basically a small pulley on a bearing) on the driver's side. That way the belt has more wrap around the water pump. It would look like a fat "V" with the belt looping up BOTH side of the water pump, a tensioner on one side, idler on the other.

 

Seems like a lot of belt flyin' around for such a simple need

I wonder if i could make a water pump with a bolt on hub work to just belt around the WP and the crank pulley :

 

How will you adjust tension?

 

I don't have a tensioner on my current setup (sb 350 type config), it just works. I don't think that the WP has enough load on it to cause the belt to ever slip. It's actually got two "V" belts next to each other.

Looks just like this :

 

The pump needs to run in he opposite direction on LS motors.

 

Didn't know that, but does it matter to anything I'm doing ( hope that doesn't sound smartass .. honest question )? What considerations will I need to make for that ?

Surely I can continue to use the existing radiator from my existing SBC setup ?

Thanks for your comments !

 

No issues with the radiator, except you'll need an adapter for the different neck sizes on the pump and radiator. You'll also need to T in a steam line somewhere from the heads.
Just buy an LS1 tensioner pulley, a long bolt, and cut a spacer. Mount it on the drivers side somewhere. Keep your existing tensioner. Route a new belt under the crank, over the new idler, under the water pump, over the tensioner. You're done.