Thread: Alternator driven by water pump belt, front mounted?

I've found several threads on relocating the alternator on the SR20 to where the Power Steering pump was. I'm exploring a different option.

What I'm investigating is repositioning the alternator slightly so that it can be driven off of the same belt as the water pump, but still be in the front. Having only one belt to worry about would keep things simpler, I don't have AC and am eliminating the PS pump. It seems that it would just be a matter of shifting the alternator position just slightly to the inside to make this work. The only piece I'm not sure of yet (as my motor is disassembled and not in the car) is if there might be interference with the header if it gets much closer.

I've searched the forum but didn't find anything like this explored yet. My main thought on keeping the alternator in the front would be to make replacement easier should the alternator fail, I can't get a good sense on how hard the alternator is to reach when rear mounted. Plus I like thinking differently. LOL

Most people relocating their alternator to the back is because of clearance issues with their header/turbo's or just wanting to clean the bay up abit. One thing to think about aswell is you'd have only a 3 rib belt running around your water pump alt and crank if you pulled it in the way your thinking.

and weight. Moving the heavy alternator to "in-between" the axles instead of in front of.

The belt will foul on the engine mount bracket if you try and run it from the wp to the alt in the stock location.

Yes, that's why I wanted to reposition it...

I spent last night pulling the fuel tank, what a pain that was. I'll look some more at the pulleys tonight and mull this thing over.