Power and Beauty - Pulleys, Headers & Intake

To install the pulleys, we first have to remove the serpentine belt. Loosening the tensioner assembly with a 3/8 ratchet allowed us to get the belt off. To gain better access to the crank pulley, we also removed the four 10mm bolts holding the fan shroud on.

You don't have to pull the fan for the install, but it really helps. The fan takes a special set of tools to remove it, thanks to the OEM mounting the fan directly on the water pump shaft.

Jay from STS brought his setup to hold the bolts on the pulley while he loosened the fan.

An air impact is used to remove the nut on the alternator. The hammering effect the impact produces will usually get the nut off. If it just spins the alternator, then you must break it free with an open end and Allen wrench.

The alternator pulley is smaller than stock, which will increase the alternator's output. Typically a larger-than-stock one is used to compensate for the faster-turning accessories, but STS knows most of its customers are running either a large stereo system or airbag suspension, and the larger pulley was causing too much drain on the truck's electrical system.

No brain surgery here -- just install the new unit.

Moving down to the crank, Jay removed the factory hardware and wiggled the pulley until it came off. As you can see, he was happy as a clam laying down on the job.

Here you can see the major difference in the od of the pulleys. The new one will slow down all the accessories to relieve some of the parasitic load on the engine and in turn give us some more ponies.

Now the pulley was tightened, again with an impact.

With that, the new Goodyear belt was snaked around everything and held on just like the factory belt.

Most exhaust hardware will rust, making it hard to remove, so all the bolts were sprayed with a bit of penetrating oil. We gave it a few minutes to penetrate before we started unbolting the manifolds.

Once the bolts were off, the manifolds were removed.

Before installing the new pipes, the head surface was cleaned of any old gasket or carbon.

Unbolt the spark plug wire looms and put them up out of the way. Do not skip this step. Otherwise, the spark plug looms will hold the head flange out, away from the head, preventing the headers from sealing. The dipstick tube also has to come out; it can be removed by gently wiggling the tube while pulling upward.
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