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z/27 camaro

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i know that the Z/28 deep groove altenater pully was used so that at high RPM's the fan belt would stay on. i also heard it was a HP gain too because the altenater is turning slower.

is there any real HP gains to be had here?
also if the altenater is turning slower, will it make less voltage in any significant numbers?
 
The aternator makes current to charge the battery, not voltage. I am pretty sure the alternator is at full current not too far above idle. Guessing about 1500 rpm. I would assume that when the alternator is at full amps (current) the the electrmagnetic torque is max also. Probably not any HP from turning slower (unless the belt is off).
 
I wouldn't expect any significant HP gains.

After playing with pulley ratios for some time, I'll relate my experiences. On my '67 (factory A/C and PS so I have a 3 sheave crank pulley) I found that with the stock pulleys if I revved it out a few times I would need to replace the bearings in the alternator. After calculating the pulley ratios I found that at 5000 crankhsaft RPM, the alt was spinning up to some ridiculous RPM. My notes from then have been lost somewhere so I don't remember exact numbers. I looked through the junk stuff at the shop and found an alt pulley that was as I recall about 1/2" larger which solved the problem nicely with no other noticeable effects. A few years later, a rebuilt alternator came through the shop that had a deep groove pulley that was larger yet. I put it on my car after which I noticed that after starting it I would have to bring it up to 1200 RPM or so before it started charging and it would discharge at idle if there were a lot of accessories on. No noticeable power increase. A few years later I was given an aftermarket set of aluminum crank and water pump pulleys. These slowed down all the accessories a little bit and slowed down the alternator a lot. I couldn't run the deep groove pulley any more due to lack of charging so I changed back to the second alt pulley above and have been happy since.

A deep groove pulley acts to keep the alternator to a reasonable RPM but also acts as a guide to keep the belt on the pulley at high RPM's.
 
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