In line water pump

While Ron, his buddy Matt and I were checking out the cars at the Rolex GrandAm races at VIR (Virginia International Raceway) this past weekend, we happened upon the display of a vendor who caters mostly to the NASCAR crowd. He had a very compact, slick looking inline electrical water pump. The turbine which does the work is also the armature of the strong little pump. As you can imagine, this is what makes this piece so compact. He claimed that it pumps 50Gal/min. I have been to the website of CV Products who the gentleman represented but did not find this as a separate item; although, I think it was a component of an integrated cooling system which they offered. This system was comprised of a radiator, the pump and a shroud/fan unit. I have submitted a request for more information on the unit which he quoted at around $400 as I recall. I will post more information as soon as received.

Neal, Davies-Craig, also of Australia, makes one as well. The difference is the compactness and the flow rate of this unit. Personally, I wouldn't be putting it on my GT40 to save a couple of horsepower; rather, I would be putting it on to maintain a good flow rate through out my cooling system. For instance, initially, I couldn't get coolant to flow through my cabin heater because there wasn't enough pressure differential to raise the water up above the radiator and through the heater core. (Now that I have the system all burped, it is flowing through the heater core, but it could use with some more flow.)

Snow White in Australia has an inline unit with an optional temp control module. I believe Meziere also makes road worthy electric pumps. They are trick but seem kind of expensive for a few HP.

OK, here is the info. This little jewel is a computer controlled brushless motor which has a 10K hour life expectancy and pump 55gal/min while pulling 8 amps @ 12.0 volts.
It comes in a hand polished finish, $434.70, or anodized in red, blue, violet or black for $404.70. It can be seen at Stewart Components Webpage or EMP Corp Website (EMP is Stewarts parent company.)

If you want some really good tech information on cooling systems, like the discussions in the Hot and Cold thread, Stewart's website has a really great tech section: Stewart Components Tech Support Page

The prices quoted above were the SRP prices from the company. I just received an email from CV Products who is a dealer for these and they quoted me a price of $391.23. So shop around!


[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Lynn Larsen ]

Lynn, I wondered if you could give me some advice? I found about GT40 cooling problems when I destroyed the 302 engine in mine the day I collected it - and the car had only done 1000 miles on a new engine! At first I thought it was just bad luck as the car had been unused for 4 years, but now I have examined it and subsequently read all this stuff about cooling, bleed off lines etc (my car has none of these. I can see there is more to it than that. Particularly, my car drove perfectly for 40 miles in heavy traffic, and then overheated on an empty motorway at 80 MPH...
Anyway, on my car (KVA) there is a metal pipe / housing where the water pump would normally be, and the pump itself has been re-sited to the bottom of the engine - the pump connects to the pipe via a hose. I am assuming this is done to alleviate clearance problem between the pump and bulkhead.
I fancy the idea of craig-davies (or similar)electric pump and electronic module which speeds up or slows down water flow as necessary to maintain temperature. What do you think? And what do you think about this inlet where the water pump used to be? Have you heard of this? Mine has been home made! Do you know if any company makes a "proper" one of these? How many bleed off lines do you actually need? And what about bleeding off the radiators? - do you have to feed a line all the way back to the header tank? I have heard of a second header tank at the front of the car.
Thanks
John

John, the kind of pump system you are talking about is used quite often in drag racing. Indeed, the Stewart pump was designed for exactly that. I am not sure what is available in England, but in the US, speed shops like Jegs and Summit have parts for replacing the stock water pump. Keep in mind that drag racing has much different cooling demands, so, while some components may be useful, be careful of just bolting on a drag solution.

It would appear that your cooling system was adequate when there was not much of a load on the engine. (Presumeably, in the traffic you were probably in lower gears at lower revs.) But, when you got on an open motorway and got the revs up, the system could not keep up. This sounds like inadequate water flow. This could be caused by a number of things. To much air/steam in the system, restriction in the pump relocation plumbing, inadequate drive to the pump or overdriving the pump and causing cavitation (were the pulley sizes changed?), to small or plugged radiator, inadequate plumbing to the radiator.

There definitely needs to be a bleeder line from the top of the radiator back to a header tank. I don't think an isolated header tank in the front would help much. You also need a way to relieve air pressure from the high points in the system when filling and in operation. This is generally somewhere around the thermostat and top of the radiator. It is not always enough to have the header tank (usually connected into the water pump return and the bypass on the thermostat housing) higher than the engine. I cant stress enough that you have to make sure you can fill the entire system with coolant and you really ought to have a way that any steam created can be bled off to the header tank. There are stories of shops jacking GT40s up head high in the rear to burp the system.

If you have not read the information at the Stewart Technical Support page (link in my previous post) I would highly recommend reading everything that is there. It is VERY good information on cooling systems in general.

There are control systems that vary fan speed based on temperature and I am sure these could be used (possibly requiring modification) to control a pump as well. I think you are on the right track in looking for another means of relocating the pump. To often "home made" solutions aren't engineered properly. I am not sure that I wouldn't put a pump like the Stewart pump inline somewhere and let the thermostat control the flow. If you do electronically control the pump, be sure to provide yourself with an override to allow full power to the pump manually. Bye the way, with number of options available these days in Ford water pumps, I have to believe you could probably find one that would fit. It may require a diffent timing chain cover as well, but it would probably be worth it.

There are far more experienced Ford engine builders out there than I am. Come on guys, lets give John some ideas to solve this problem!

When I was at the PRI show in Indianapolis, last year Stewart had quite a display. They even offer a radiator, with that water pump built right into it. I was there on Wendsday during setup, and left late Saturday evening after the close of show. They had a pump running water through it all day long every day of the show, with no problems. This with no airflow going over it. This display usually was running from 8:00am-at least 6:00pm everyday. Also if you want to see a truely awesome cooling system, you should check out Jim Glickenhaus's Lola . He is also the owner of J-6. The craftsmanship on this Lola is second to none.

I have fitted the craig davis ewp to my GTD. It comes with a thermostat which I set to circulate the water at 90c. It works brilliantly and the car hasn't overheated since.

I didn't remove my waterpump, just removed the impeller.

I highly reccomend this mod!

Regards
Simon