I swapped out to a 3.4 a year ago. Over the winter, my idler pulley (closest to the front of vehicle) siezed up and melted. Luckily, nothing happened to Gatorback (stock length) belt. I replaced ($9 part) and had the same issue jastek1 is currently having. The belt kept sliding over (almost half on, half off). Turns out, the belt wasn't completely on the crank pulley (largest). It was one "rib" off. Check to see if yours is completely on.

EDIT: Just checked w/ SLP'* site, I have the 3.5. Sorry.

Another cheaper option would be to use an oversized idler pulley.

I bought a new belt and it works fine now. Still not sure why the old one kept walking off the pulley.

I think I will just keep the TR55s and gap them at .050. Once I get a scan tool, I will decide if I do any air box work (probably will).

Thanks for all the input.

.050 is too small for TR55'*. I believe the lowest you are supposed to gap them is like .054. Not to mention with your mods you shouldn't need to gap any lower than .055" at the very most, until you have an intake, PCM and exhaust work. Pulley and t-stat are very minimal for a mod list.

OLBlueEyesBonne - what would be the correct gapping for my mods? When installed, I left them at factory gapping.

.055" on the TR55'* for your mods.

Agreed. .055-.057 for a 3.4-3.5 pulley on our cars works well. The larger the spark you can get away with the better the overall burn in the cylinder (more spark = more efficient ignition) however with more boost the cyilnder pressure rises and can sometimes blow out the spark so you must gap it smaller to compensate. Ideally you would like the largest gap (up to .060) without having spark blowout.

As for the belt, sometimes stock belts with miles (or years) on them stretch quite a bit and this may have been your problem. The 3.5 is a little large for a 715 belt which is why we recommend using the stock belt (as long as its in good shape) but it seems like you are ok with it now

I'm sorry I missed you when you were in, I believe I was playing with a cobalt or something at the time.

Rogue - I am sure I will be back up to see you guys. I did not expect to do anything more than the 3.5 pulley, but now that I see what can be done, I want more.

By the way, tell Tim King that the new belt worked.

On the alignment of the belt, which is the question at hand.

Double check the crank pulley, it has a lot to do with how the belt runs and wants to track. I've run a few variations, seen other things and wouldn't doubt the advice given by Intense. They'll give you the good/bad for each mod.

If your stock pulley tracked straight..then check all others in the path that may have changed. Aka the crank and front ribbed pulley. The front would be noticeable, the crank can be tough to be sure about unless you go in through the wheel well if you don't have experience with it.

Bill and I changed my pulley to a 3.5 and a 715 belt. I did have my tensioner fail shortly after the pulley swap, but I'd say if was probably on it'* way out and just hadn't started making noise. I've added an Intense FWI since then it'* made a huge difference. The pulley seemed to give me more bottom end take off while the FWI kept her from running out of breath. I'm changing to a 180 T-Stat and I might do a PCM, but just changing the pulley and losing the box made a big difference.