Long time lurker, first time poster. As the title hints, has anyone ever converted their 300 to a Serpentine belt? I have an '87 that is decommissioned due to frame and wiring harness damage. My '83 is now my primary. I'm considering pulling the motor from the '87 and having it freshened up to go in my '83 along with a new cam, Offy intake, Holley Sniper FI system and a Summit HEI distributor. I got to thinking, it would be cool to keep the serpentine belt set up for ease of maintenance so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has ever tried such a swap? Really it wouldn't be a swap as much as keeping the '87 more original. Thoughts?

 

I dont see why you could not as long as the water pump and accessories match the 87 belt setup.

I have a buddy that made his own serpentine belt setup as he wanted the accessories closer to the motor than the factory setup had them.
It was a custom set up as the PS had a tank that was not part of the pump assy. and he went with a 3G ALT as he also installed a Snipper EFI but he went with the 2300 v2 set up as he felt the v4 was too much for what he wanted to do with the truck.
He built a fuel module setup that dropped into a larger tank but used the 80-86 fuel gauge setup and would be good for the Snipper EFI.
HE also is running a electronic auto transmission that needed a computer to work.
A lot of work but truck ran great when he got it on the road. To bad he moved far away as I would have liked to spend more time with him and going over the truck.

So what you want to do is doable go for it.
Dave ----

 

I will probably do the 2V also, it just seems to make more sense to me. I'm researching using the new fuel tanks/selector valve and pumps I bought for my '87 to fuel the Sniper system. Just gotta figure out the wiring/ PSI requirements and such.

 

I think he did use Ford high PSI in tank pump that I think comes in the 87> trucks as the <86 used a low PSI in tank pump to supply fuel to a high PSI pump on the frame rail.

Now the problem is the 87> senders work backwards from the <86 senders so your 83 gauge would read backwards.
I am not sure of the ohm range is the same or not?

My buddy took his 85 sender and made it work on the 87> fuel pump module so his gauge would work right.
Because he did this before he went EFI and was using the truck with the factory carb he had to run a fuel pressure regulator then removed it when he when EFI.
Thing was the fuel PSI was low and he thinks the pump got hurt being used with the carb & regulator so a new pump fixed it.

So I dont see why you cant run the 87> pumps if the PSI is good for the EFI just got to deal with the sender.
Also IIRC the tank switching is different on the 87> trucks because of the in tank pumps.
A 80-86 300 six truck has a 3 port valve on the frame rail that switches between tanks, the fuel pump is on the motor pulling fuel from the tanks.
The dash switch also switches what tank sender to read so the dash switch does 2 things, sends power to the 3 port valve and changes what sender to read.

I think the in tank pumps use a 6 port valve and it also does the sender switching but you will need to look into that to see where the gauge / sender switching is done.
Can you use a 3 port valve with, in tank high PSI pumps? I dont know because in the 80-86 trucks (v8's) that used in tank pumps did not use the 3 port valve.
I also dont know if the high PSI will over run the valve and push the valve to a tank not used?

Just something to look into. You can also ask over in the 80-86 truck area what your plan is of using the 87> tanks & pumps in the 83 truck and see what others have to say.
I know the 3 port system as that is what my 81 F100 Flare side, yes flare side with dual tanks, uses but the v8 stuff I am not so sure on as there were many different setups till they all went EFI.

Good luck and maybe start a thread in the 80 - 86 area as we like to follow what others are doing to their trucks.
Dave ----