Belt Trouble

[Jan Larsen]

Been having belt trouble with the CAT for a while now. For the last two months I've gone through 4 front belts and 3 middle belts, but no rear ones funnily enough.
Picture below shows one of the front belts after 3 heats.
The picture with the middle belt was taken just after the last A final from the first round of the danish nationals. 6 heats it lasted. This is with a 9,5T motor on a small track! Put a 5,5 in for bigger tracks and the problem gets even bigger.
I've raced Schumacher cars for almost 5 years now and never had this problem until now. All the onroad chassis' I've owned have not had this problem.
From what I have experienced so far, the problem seems to lie when you're braking heavily. Has anyone else noticed this?

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8734/img1302c.jpg

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4646/img1304r.jpg

[Northy]

No problems here with belts for me.

I own an S1 Cat that we raced for 24 hours with a 10.5 in, that since then has done Tallywain National with a 7.5 fitted and about 20 minutes of practise yesterday on high grip astro.

The belts still do not slip/click at all.

Odd.

G

[Chrislong]

It shouldn't be doing that, Ive run the same belts in my car since September racing regular with 5.5 motor in - not a click to be heard, no sign of wear.

Check that the gears are fitted right, then check that the layshafts are running parallel to each other, then make sure the white disks on the gears are the right way around... I can't think of anything else it could be. Just go OTT with check, rebuilding and analysing everything.

[Jan Larsen]

Everything has been double, even tripple checked to run true and level. Nothing out of the ordinary. One of the front belts hadnt even torn like the one in the picture, just stretched so much it was jumping teeth and sounding like an XXX4 when braking.
I have a spare car for parts and I have tried different pulleys and stuff, nothing helps.
I can understand the front belt tears once in a while (although quite frequently atm!) due to high braking forces, but the middle one going upsidedown has me puzzled. I can feel its getting looser quickly, ergo it must be stretching.

*scratches head*

[Chrislong]

Is there anything inside the car which is loose and moving, could be hitting the belt. Is there anything tight in the transmission (check for tight when full steering lock is on). I have exhausted all my ideas.

I turn my brakes right down to about 60% and I run with no drag brake atall. I also turn the brake curve to -30% so they don't feel so aggressive. Although the brakes are less and I can't lock the wheels, I can do an endo if braking from a high speed and hit a bump.

[lochness42]

I haven't experienced anything like that as well (I'm using 5.5T and 6.5T motors in it).
I changed only rear belt once because it looked at one spot like it met little stone, it worked good but I just wanted to be sure it won't tear.

To middle belt - doesn't your car have too much chassis flex and that's reason of skipping? Did you set your front belt tension correctly?

[Jan Larsen]

The car is outfitted with the latest lipo chassis, which I believe is the stiffest there is, together with the standard topdeck. Granted, the car sees some degree of torture from the bumpy, high grip carpet tracks we run, but still, it shouldnt do this. Gonna do some more troubleshooting even though I'm basically out of ideas.
Front belts have been set standard, one click looser and one click tighter. No change whatsoever, result exactly the same.