Serpentine Belt vs V belt

[racert22]

Considerin buyin a serpentine pulley setup.. anybody know if its worth havin.. n is they any gain in motor performance over the v-belt setup??

[FlatTire]

Yes there are differences in power loss between v-belts and serpentine belts. Your serpentine belts perform better because they have a thinner cross section which results in better flexibility/conformance which results in less friction which means less heat build up and less slippage making the serpentine belt more efficient and consuming less hp.

You always want a v-belt with cogs. They don't slip as much and generate less power loss(1%-2% less than a non-cogged version). Also serpentines don't need pulleys that are as big as v-belt setups do. This will save on bearing/shaft seal wear like you see on water pumps.

The ultimate is your gilmer/HTD synchronous belts. They don't slip so you don't have any of the negative effects as you do with a v-belt/serpentine in regards to slippage.

I've seen a test that compared several v-belts to gilmer/HTD belts. The efficiencies of a gilmer/htd are several percent greater than the classic v-belts. Your horsepower loss will be about 3 times less with a gilmer/htd belt.
We are talking about hp loss of less than 1hp so the differences are small but there are differences. If I was building the ultimate crate engine I would look for every advantage I could get.

[powerslide]

Idler or no idler on the serpentine setup?

[powerslide]

And i'm curious if the HTD/Gilmer setup is more better why do we not see it on any of the dirt late model teams motors?