Serpentine compatibility with 86 camaro 305

[av8tr33337]

Here's my issue. I'm putting 1986 305 Out of a Camaro into my 51 chevy 3100. I am wanting to run a serpentine setup on it and I know that for the most part the 4.3, 5.0 and the 5.7 are pretty much the same engine as far as the front of the block and heads go. Today I picked up the serpentine set up of of a 4.3 Chevy astro van. I only gave 20 bucks for it so I'm not really out anything. The drivers side bracket bolted right up but the Passenger side wasn't even close. Turned out the head on the passenger side only has 1 hole where the 4.3 has 3 holes. There are also a couple holes down toward the bottom of the block that were out of reach of the bracket. I know some of your trucks have stock serpentine set ups and I need to know if the passenger side head on those truck have 3 holes?? also do your brackets pick up the two lower holes as well??

Also the set up I got has the alternator on the passanger side and the ac on the driver's side. I'm guessing that's a difference between the "Pickup" 4.3 and the "Van" 4.3 due to minimal real estate under the hood.

Right now Im thinking Im screwed but maybe I just need to get a complete setup from an s10 pickup or a full size truck. Any advise, pictures would be helpful.

[joedoh]

it wont matter if you get a different setup, a one bolt passenger head will always be the problem with a serpentine setup, they will all have 3 bolts. you should be able to see the spot to drill and tap a second hole, I dont think you can get three installed but two will work.

the difference between an astro and an s10 is just the bracket is one piece on some astros and two piece on a s10 4.3.

as far as the lower holes, did you get the water pump from the donor? your original water pump will not work, it will spin in reverse, and the outlet covers the lower bolt holes from fitting the bracket.

for $20 you certainly didnt get hurt, and we can figure this out.

[Coupeguy2001]

I put a 91 firebird serpentine system on my 350. I am using the 86 corvette aluminum heads. You might consider using an 86 corvette serpentine belt system without using the smog pump.
The corvette uses one hole on the front of the right head.

Make your own bracket with two one inch round aluminum spacers, and run the universal idler pulley. The corvette system only has one hole on the right head, so you might get away with it. It uses a specific A C compressor clutch that has grooves for a special bolt that is just under the AC compressor pulley. The bolt has a flat machined on the head so that it can slide past the clutch in the groove on the AC clutch specific to corvettes..

The only problem I see here, is that the brackets might be a little wide for your engine compartment,
and yes you have to run a reverse rotation water pump with a serpentine setup.

The camaro serpentine setup has a reverse water pump that has a lower water exit on the water pump, where the corvette comes out the normal spot.
The camaro water pump has no heater hose fitting, so you will have to use the place on the head on the right side of the engine between spark plugs.

The corvette has a heater hose outlet in the normal spot.The corvette system has a small tube at the back of the intake for an air bleed in the cooling jacket, and you might just incorporate it to get the water flowing to the back of the right head because it is a known hot spot.

On serpentine systems, the pulleys that have no ribs run backwards to the crank pulley.

Also, check the back of the heads for the three holes that you need. someone may have done a valve job on that engine at some point and put the heads back on the wrong sides.
Back in the 80's, GM saved some money on machining by only drilling the three holes on one end of the heads. If they saved 50 cents a hole, that is a lot of money if you add up $1 per head times 1 million heads.

[av8tr33337]

Yeah not hurt to bad. It was in a wrecked Astro van and we just sawzall'd the front of the engine bay and yanked it out in less than an hour. Not sure how comfortable I am drilling into the head myself. I knew about the water pump issue, but I didn't grab the one off the van because they are cheap and didn't want to take a chance on the salvage one. Here is a video from powerblock tv and it shows a bracket that should pick up at least two bolt holes including one of the lower ones. At 8 min 53 sec you can see it attached at the lower hole and swung up to catch what I think is the one hole in the head that I do have. I probably just need to go look at the s10 set up in tact and go from there. Im probably making it more difficult than it needs to be.


https://www.powerblocktv.com/episode...d#.V_juBeArLIU

[joedoh]

I have seen your great how tos on chassis shortening and body mounting, so you can get this done. the heads are cast iron, so drilling and tapping for the second (and maybe the third) bolt is not even as hard as drilling steel. The Yard has taps for $1, you live in the perfect town.

the 4.3 is identical to the v8 smallblock, so the lower bolts will line up.

[mr48chev]

The two things you need to worry about when drilling the head is using something for a pilot to center the drill bit and slip a length of tubing over the bit to work as a drill stop to control the depth of the hole. That should keep you out of the water jacket.

A bit that just fits in the hole of the bracket should center the hole and you can drill just far enough with it to have a good center hole for the pilot drill. A bottoming tap will tap threads all the way down to the bottom of the hole and you can probably use the hole that is there to judge the max depth you want to go. You might check the depth of the matching holes in the other head though.

[Daze57]

av8tr33337
i have a 350 with the same head problem -- but if you were able to get the stabilizer rods (i think there are 2 ) you prolly could tag one into the intake manifold .
there are alot of threads on the serpentine set up with some nice pictures --maybe that would help ya out.

[av8tr33337]

Thanks guys for all the great feedback. I was able to go to "LKQ pick your part" today and got something that Should work nice. It was off of a 91 GMC Jimmy with a 4.3.

I'll attach some pics. As you can see in the pics both aluminum brackets pick up the two lower holes and the drivers side picks up all 3 holes in the head. The passenger bracket only uses two, even on the Jimmy it came off of. It uses the outboard most upper hole in the head (which I have) and one on the inboard edge of the head. That one I could probably drill and tap but Im not looking forward to it.

Mr48, good ideas in centering the bit, etc. I will have to pull up some of my old work skills from when I used to build the wings for the Cessna Citation Sovereign. We used drill guide blocks which ensures a straight whole and drill stops to ensure proper depth. As Joedoh reminded me we have a place here called "The Yard" which sells, among other things, surplus and new aircraft tools. I'll stop and see what they have.

The two other pics are not very good but show two different types of braces I found on an 89 S10 at LKQ that attach to the back of the driver's side(A/C Compressor side) bracket. pic 2 shows a brace running form the a/c bracket to the intake. pic 3 shows a brace running for the a/c bracket to the water pump for lateral stability.

The lower area on the on the passenger side bracket is for the smog pump which I will not use, I will probably modify that section by trimming some off making sure not to take away from the overall strength.

I picked up a water pump for 29.00 at AutoZone.

I picked up the P/S pump from the Jimmy as well, and I will go back for the A/C compressor. I was thinking about just running an A/C delete pulley but they are about 30.00 and I can get the compressor for about 20.00 more at LKQ and i plan to have A/C Sometimg in the near future.

The A/C compressor I picked up yesterday was a bust because it wasn't a pancake design. The Power steering pump would have worked, but it had a remote fill tube since it was down low in the engine bay of the wrecked Chevy Astro Van it came out of, however the pulley was in better shape than the one I got today so I will use that. The Alternator off the astro van fit perfect. So I didn't totally throw my 20 bucks away.

I am amazed at how slow this is coming together for me right now but hopefully when I get the engine put to bed I can make better time.