oldscutlass74

I have a 74 cutlass supreme with a 68-70 block and 72 heads, I use it for asphalt oval racing. I am looking to convert the pulleys to a serpentine system, someone told me it is a more efficient way to run them for a racing application. My block serial # is 395558 2 and my heads are 409 147 7A. What pulley's/brackets would I need to get to convert this system to serpentine? Also, I am looking to put on a FlowKooler 1575 or 1576 water pump (not sure which one fits my car yet) will it work? Thanks for any help!

svnt442

You have to match the water pump length to the pulley setup you are going to use.
One of the members here has developed a serpentine setup using an Olds V6 diesel reverse rotation water pump.
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...fuel-pump.html

joe_padavano

"Someone" would be wrong. There is no factory serpentine system for an Olds motor (unless you can find one of the extremely rare V6 diesel setups). The aftermarket systems like March are NOT serpentine. They use a conventional rotation water pump and a BOATLOAD of idler pulleys to force the flat belt into enough contact with the drive pulleys to work. I'd argue that this half-fast design causes more drag and HP loss than the factory V-belt system.

Exactly what accessories are you running for oval racing? Besides the alternator, what else do you have? These aftermarket systems all assume alternator, PS, and A/C, so without those you'd have a bunch of additional idler pulleys to replace the missing accessories. Is this really worth the nearly $2K that these systems cost? I'll suggest that reliability is far more important in a racing application than anything else, and it's hard to be more reliable than factory V-belts.

GEARMAN69

Try the Dayco "Top Cog" series of V belts for the stock pulleys

Fun71

This is no help to your question at all, but you have a bit of misinformation. The 395558 2 block was used from 1968-1976, so coupled with your 7A (1972) heads I wold suspect you have a 1972 engine. It's easy enough to verify by looking at the stamping on the block VIN pad below the #1 cylinder.