External Water Pump

[Xack]

Hello All, I'd like to hear from those who have any experience running an external booster pumps. I have a 460 which is newly broke in. It's in my West Coast Cobra and thats in the body work and paint phase. Before I put the body back on it. I am considering putting a booster pump to help my Wieand. During the break in I had some heating issues.

My Wieand pump has a stock type impeller which I highly suspect it has cavitation problems. I was wondering if a booster pump will reduce this phenomena reducing pressures in the mechanical pump. I'm thinking of getting a Stewart booster if it will give me options for keeping temps down in emergencies or just keep the cool.

Is 55 gpm too high?

Thanks.

[RICK LAKE]

Xack 98% of the time all new motors run hot for 5-10 heat cycles before running at a cooler level. The first thing I will ask you is what size pulleys are on the motor? If the crank is underdriven this will start a problem. Next is air flow in and out of the motor compartment. Does your coolant fan have a schroud on it? If you are running the car in the driveway, do you have a fan infront of the car to help cool the radiator? If your radiator is standing straight up and down in the car you are getting max air flow. If yours is at an angle, you may need a splitter in the nose to redirect the air into the top of the radiator like an ERA car. Do you have the small dual fans in front of the radiator? If yes, they also cause a loss of air flow to the radiator, they do look cool when running. Open the hood if running the car and not moving. Back to the waterpump, they sell a plate kit for about 10-15 bucks to help in crease water flow in the motor. It rivets to the impellor of the pump. If you can remove the rearend plate, yo can see this. Becareful to not damage the gasket or you may have to make a new gasket from scratch. This plate will increase the flow 10-20 %. As far as the AUX water pumps, they are more for 1/4 race cars to help cool the motor between rounds. The other thing is you should n't run a thermostat with these pumps. Once the motor thermostat closes there is very little flow. We run flat plates with a hole or holes in the plate for the coolant to go through. If you have a long coolant run between the motor and the raditor, you might use this as a helper pump. Problem is how long the pump lasts and if it goes bad, what do you do to fix it on the side of the road. It's the same thing as electric water pumps for motors, some guys get 2-3 years out of them, some get only 1 season. Alot of money for very little gain in help. I think you will find that it is more important to get the best hiflow coolant fan with schroud, high flow thermostat, and stock size pulleys for the motor. If the charging system is not putting out enough amps at idle with the motor running and other electrical curcuits on you will kill the battery. This is a whole other thread. Last note, if you have a long run of radiator hose and it doesn't have hard wire inside it to stop it from colapsing you may want to change this to exhaust pipe as must as possible. Also double clamp all radiator hoses with clamps 180 degrees apart. Good luck. Ps it is also possible that you may still have air in the system and need to either jackup the cars front end to force the air to the front of the motor and out of the coolant system or have the system vacuumed down to fix the same thing. If jacking up, WATCH the oil pressure and have an extra quart in the pan. This will not hurt anything.

[bobcowan]

If the current water pump is not working as well as you'de like, why not simply replace it with a better pump?

A booster pump adds weight and complexity, increases the risk of failure, and costs money.

I use an Edelbrock aluminum pump and have no issues at all.

[FWB]

on the west coast chances are its not the pump causing overheating.
the hose configuration seems to be wrong from the factory.
kitcarb (another member) had some issues too and changed the small hose configuration with good results. not to say there may be issues with the wieand pump, but i've noticed other WCC owners with similar issues with other than wieand pumps. check with kitcarb to see if he can tell you what he did, i don't recall the exact fix he did.

Fred

[Xack]

Originally Posted by FWB

on the west coast chances are its not the pump causing overheating.
the hose configuration seems to be wrong from the factory.
kitcarb (another member) had some issues too and changed the small hose configuration with good results. not to say there may be issues with the wieand pump, but i've noticed other WCC owners with similar issues with other than wieand pumps. check with kitcarb to see if he can tell you what he did, i don't recall the exact fix he did.

Fred

My crank pulley is 6-1/4" and my WP pulley is 5-1/4". Fan is pull and shrouded. I have since replaced the fan blade with an "S" design to ramp the max air to 3K CFM. I'm going to put on a water fill in the radiator hose to make it easier to fill and also look at putting in an air purge on the water neck.

Fred, Thanks for the info. I wrote Kitcarbp a note asking the question.

Rick, Thanks for the input. I figured from posts on "460Ford.com" that the 460 has tendencies to run hot and in traffic it might be a problem. When I broke in my car (which probably is not all the way finished) it did run hot and I had to shut it down and ran it a couple of times up to 220 or so before I shut her off. The temps just kept going up. I made sure I put in a Zinc treatment for the cam break in. I did turn it about 2000 or higher RPM's during that time. I'm hoping that the cam is all set to go. I ran it for the last time and the temps were around 200. I only idled it at that time and it did climb up to about 200 and seemed to stay there. At this point the engine bay is wide open no body on yet. I was looking at the aux pump to give a little more emergency cool if I cruise in hot weather or got caught in stop and go traffic on the way from the beach. Way overkill I guess. I'm going to replace the Wieand with an Edelbrock. That seems like the thing most people agree on.

Thanks,
Xack

[RICK LAKE]

Zack Before you go crazy on this problem, have a couple of ideas to try that will not break the bank or wallet. Hold off on the pump first off. From the old days, not to laugh I worked on a SCJ Torino with a 429 topend and 460 block. This thing always ran hot until we did some things to it.
We ran a water pump for AC system whick had more impellors than the car without AC. Like you said the car needed more coolant flow. We also found that the impellor was solid plate that was riveted to the impellor. This is an easy thing for you to do,
Get a pair of water pump gaskets for the block first. There where kits in Summit and Jegs for these kits. All it was was a thin steel disc and 3 or 6 rivets depending on how many fins are on the impellor of the water pump. The rivets where short 1/8" or 3/16" Enough to hold the 2 parts togeather. If you don't have a thin piece of steel or aluminum go to Lowe's and get a piece of 12"/12". You are going to make a circle to rivet to the impellor. The easy way is to find a can, cup, or compus to make the circle. You want to make it just small enough to spin inside the waterpump housing and not hit anything with about 1/4" clearance. Drill holes in the widest part of the impellor in the middle and rivet it a minimum of 3 times. I do mine on every impellor fin. Reseal the back of the waterpump. If you are careful you can reuse the gasket or go with a thn coating of RTV and let the sealer setup for 24 hours, this is a must. If you have the gasket in good shape, I spray them with hi-tack and let them sit for an hour. Reassembly pump on motor.
Next, what temp is the thermostat? Is it a 180F or 195F? Here is another problem, I am hoping you have all the air out of the system, we had a real problem with the SCJ and air pockets. We had to burp the system about 4-6 times to get all the air out. Lets get back to thermostats. Pull the stat and check the temp on it. If you get alot of heat out there, 180F is fine. Make sure there is 1 or 2, 1/8" holes in the solid piece of the therostat. This is to help remove air from the system when or if it gets air bound. Next go to the local Autostore and find thermostats. We are looking for a stock one with the largest port in your temp reading of 180f. The housing may be a little bigger but we are going to trim it down to fit. The FE motor I have uses, a BB-RB motor from Dodge, 383/400. The port is 1/4" larger for more flow that the FE one. I race autocross and roadrace, Motor doesn't go over 200f even in 100degree temp. Get a water housing gasket and thermostat that looks like it will work. FORGET about those highflow $25.00, antistick ones. IMOP they are no better than a good Stants one. Go home trim themostat to fit in manifold flush or outlet housing. Drill 2 holes 1/8" at 180 degrees apart. If thermostat is vertical, you want a hole at the top of the housing, thermostat laying flat doesn,t matter. Install new gasket, install waterpump and fill with coolant, Burp the system a couple of times ad go for a road test. They sell a funnel kit for about $30.00 is clips onto the radiator filling spot and will let the motor run without having to keep opening and closing the cap.
These things will be more about your time and saving you a $100.00 or more for the price of a new pump that will not do anything to help your problem. When you get your water pump off the motor and the inspection plate off, if there is a disc already on the impellor, this means you already have a highflow waterpump and we need to look in a different direction, still checkout the thermostat port for size. We may need a different pulley for the water pump. Good luck Rick L.

[Xack]

Rick,
Thanks for the information. I have a couple of questions on your suggestion. First do you have a photo? or Drawing? My pump is a Weiand. The impellers look like stock. It's been a while since I actually looked at the impellers. Its supposed to be high flow, which means that the holes may not be in the impeller compared to stock one. I will have to remove it or find a photo or contact Weiand to know.

I don't think it makes any difference, but I have a 72'+ type Weiand WP on my 68' block. This is so that the brackets would work with the power steering and alternator set up that came with my kit. The bolts work and it does not leak. No problems with water in the oil etc.

Back to the mod. Pardon my lack of understanding. Is the metal circle plate mounted to the the impeller body? An it just close the holes? I'm guessing i need to drill holes in the impeller to pop-rivet the metal disc to the impeller. or do I need to get real rivets and make sure they are as flat as I can get them when done?

Does the metal disc need to be larger than the diameter of the impeller? Like out to the edge of the gasket?

Thanks,
Zack

[RICK LAKE]

Xack You want the metal disc to be the same size as the impellor. There are no holes in the impellor fins. You will need to drill them into the fins and disc. Drill in the middle of the widest part of the fin. Drill slow and take your time. You don't want to damage the bearing or seal on the pump shaft. Make sure you clean ALL the metal chips out of the water pump housing. Good steel pop rivets work fine. IMO, I wouldn't use aluminum ones.
The reason for this disc is to increase flow of the pump and not let coolant get around the impellor.
You didn't say what the temp on the thermostat was? You will see the temp numbers on the bottom.
I think this will bring down the temp about another 10 degrees. If you need to drop the temp more, we need to look at pulleys next. You may be over running yours too much. The coolant is not getting enough time in the radiator to cool down, again we are back to air flow in and out of the car hood. I have added 2 blower fans from the boating world to help remove the hot air from under the hood. They blow out the side vents in the fenders. Have to rap them in foam tape that heating and ac guys used to protect the plastic from melting. I also have a little extra shielding to protect them from header heat. I don't know what is the design of your sidepipes inside the housing but have a small inlet and outlet will increase the heat under the hood also. If you are worried about the temp of the motor sitting in traffic get a small piece of 2x4 rapped in cloth and open the backof the hood 2" and this will also help bring down temps. Rick L.

[Xack]

The thermostat is a 160 which I gutted by hacksawing off the brackets. Its just there to seal against the O-Ring in my water neck. I was experimenting to increase flow. It's a high flow now. I understand what your saying about decreasing flow to allow the inlet temps to cool down. That just wil mean that the water stays in the engine longer. I've heard both sides of this. I'm on the side of increasing flow and improving the fan flow in the radiator. I did modify my fan which should improve things. I found that the fan blade was a pusher installed as a puller. The cupping on the blades was backwards. There was flow, but restricted through the radiator. Since then I have replaced the fan with an "S" blade which pulls higher CFM's, and it's temp controlled. I recently talked to Don Mezeire who helped me with understanding a potential problem I may have with the plumbing on my Coolant expansion tank. It seems from the manufacturer it has flow problems which may indeed be preventing the air from being pushed out of the engine block. I will send you photos if you'd like so you can see better what I'm dealing with.