I just did the conversion tonight and had a question - I read the whole write up on converting (very good and full of great pics btw) and noticed that on 2point6's motor did not use the bracket going over the old auto tensioner's spot that he included in the parts list. I see that he explained that he did not use it for ease of removing the head/cams later without removing all the other stuff. What I would like to know is, is this safe without the timing belt pulley lock, and who is/has used this setup successfully for a daily driver ?

On a side note, I originally tried installing it with the bracket and noticed the timing belt was way too tight to install - after further inspection I realized the manual tensioner bracket was hitting the right bolt on the damn auto tensioner replacing bracket, making it only un-tension until it hit the bolt, which was way too tight to install it. After removing the bolt it worked fine, but then the bracket only has one bolt instead of two (im sure itd be fine but i just took it off).

Has anyone else done this setup and noticed this too ?

If you did want to install the dumb bracket, how do you do it ? Install with one bolt ? lol

 

bump ! i know i posted late last night lol

 

I've posted about this more times than I care to remember.

You can install everything without that L-bracket. Make sure you use shorter bolts, as those two bolt holes secure the oil pump against the block as well as hold that L-bracket in place. Once you do this, you can get a LOT more slack on the timing belt.

 

I've ran without the bracket for 5000 miles so far. and have had nothing come up. car drives like a dream.

 

thanks for the info guys. I actually ended up cutting the bracket's right side off, using the stock bolt on the bracket and the tensioner lock, and used a smaller bolt on the other hole. It made it so that I could still use the bracket and the belt had more slack than it would if the whole bracket was installed