Electric Water Pumps

[trikesrule]

What are your thoughts and does anyone have links so I can have a look at a few? ............trikes

[bdwoody]

trikes try johnson pumps or itt jabsco..

[GORDON STREETER]

http://www.superchevy.com/technical/...s/0408sc_pump/ Try this Trikes

[GORDON STREETER]

I've personally never tried them as you don't get something for nothing. Electrically driven things take power from the engine if you have a charging system so it may not give you that gnats of HP. I do like the idea that you can still circulate the water with the engine off though

[Al Weyman]

I always thought of them as a drag racing bit of kit, not for road racing.

[inpitlane]

Davies Craig here in Melbourne Australia make them and they have been run quite successfully in Formula Ford by Cade Southall.
Google Davies Craig and you should find some info.
BTW they have great benefits for Turbo cars keeping coolant circulating after the engine is switched off.

[StephenRae]

Originally Posted by inpitlane

Davies Craig here in Melbourne Australia make them and they have been run quite successfully in Formula Ford by Cade Southall.....

You are as likely to be allowed to run an electric water pump in the UK as you are a 'steel' crank....unless the day comes when one of the powers that be can see a profit in it.

[knighty]

Trikes (and everyone) you need to be very careful with electric water pumps,

1) they don’t have very much "oompf" when it comes to pushing the water through a head of pressure……….so a pump rated to 80 L/min, will typically only give you around 40-60L/min……..consider you need 1/3rd the engine power in L/min, so for 300bhp, that’s 100L/min………its not going to be up to the job…….but many sizes are now available, or perhaps run 2 on a V8

2) and it’s a system requirement that you remove the thermostat, which I don’t like doing, as the block typically sees 4 bar water pressure, which resists the plate boiling effect……….the rest of the coolant system is typicallly 1 bar……..

I ran one on my 1137cc blackbird powerwed single seater and it initially ran too fast and it was running way too hot……..so I slowed it down with a ballast resistor, as the EWP controller unit was a mess in my opinion, but the newer ones now look much nicer. I only ran one as my packagine dictated it…….I would have run a mechanical pump if I could have, and I will never run another electric pump again……..you just need to do your sums before you install one…….. They do work, just be carefull

[Peter Mallett]

I run one as used by the Aston Martin team. It works very well.

[Al Weyman]

Is that legal in historics Peter? :-)

[kjw]

I run one on my car and it works fine. The benefit is it will circulate water after the engine is turned off and keep the engine at an even temperature rather than sitting there cooking.

[trikesrule]

I've had a look at two so far and what Knighty say's appears to be backed up by info from other sources but what you other chaps are saying also has merit. Jury is not in for me yet.........trikes

[IAN #51]

I have run one on my car this season (Davies Craig EWP 80) and have found it to be very good as kjw says the major benefit being when you switch the car off after a race you can leave the pump and fan running helping to prevent heat soak.On the subject of removing the thermostat i just drilled out the workings and put the plate back in providing a restriction for the water to pass through.

On old cars like mine (Triumph Spitfire) we also have problems with pump cavitation at high revs (7000+RPM) and again the EWP does away with this.
I also have had no problems with overheating when held up in the assembley area or grid which i used to with the standard pump.

Just remember though if you fit one you have to either remove the old pump completley or remove the impellar on the back of it.

[Peter Mallett]

Al,

It is for group 1.

[Notso Swift]

Trikes Davies Craig do a 110 as well as the 80 lt min. I with Knighty on the block pressure issue, but I do know guys in IP who have used then in conjunction with a thermostat and just set them with a knob on the dash, they have it either at about half voltage (low flow) until they have warmed up then turn it up to flat out when they go out on the track. I guess there is no reason an ECU couldn't do that automatically if it had a PWM output.

Don't buy a second hand one, the old model had a bad rep for seals going

Prodrive also used them on their LeMans Ferrari 550 before the Aston Martin, so they are obviously happy

[Goran Malmberg]

I am going to use an electric pump on the Nordic Supercar Corvette. The reason for doing o is the construction of the chassis where a belt driven pump is creating space troubble. So, I use what suit the car the best.
The two types of pumps do have different things going for them, seen from a cooling perspective, and in some cases this may tell what to use.
Goran

[DaveGT6]

I've used one of these on a Triumph 6cyl for a few years now and it is a godsend. Eliminated hot running issues plus totally sorted heat soak problems when you shut off the engine. It also works great in pit stop races as you can cut the engine to change drivers but have the pump wired to keep running so that you never get any heat soak issues leading to difficult starting.

[trikesrule]

Uumm I've had a look around, spoken with a few other people out of this circle and I think it's probably not worth it at the moment. We don't have a heat soak problem and the hp increase is only minimal. So until 'they' make a bit better kit I won't be stuffing round with our cooling system.

[coln72]

But when you are playing with 1300cc's of throbbing Toyota power - every little bit counts.

[graham bahr]

i've run them for years, first one was on a 170bhp 2.0 bmw engine although i didnt fit it for improved cooling purposes it improved cooling compaired to the std bmw mechanical pump.

i still use the same pump now on a 485bhp turbo engine, personally i dont think that the speed you circulate the water is that important as long as its fast enough not to boil in the head, circulating the water too fast just means that the water is leaving the rad before its properly cooled

[Goran Malmberg]

Originally Posted by graham bahr

personally i dont think that the speed you circulate the water is that important as long as its fast enough not to boil in the head, circulating the water too fast just means that the water is leaving the rad before its properly cooled

Agreed, however, as I undertand the situation, if radiator is marginal to do the job waterspeed may need to pass just over Reynolds 2000 to get turbulent against cooling vane walls in the radiator in order to "mix" the cooled water with the hot. There are also a little balance act waterspeed vs even block-head temperature which has less to do with the cooling capacity.
I have run as low a 40 liters a minute pump on a 8 litre engine (not racing) with no problems, in fact overcooling at motorway driving. I couldnt tell about the cylinder wall temperature vs heads then, didnt measure.

Goran

[Highside]

Originally Posted by graham bahr

i've run them for years, first one was on a 170bhp 2.0 bmw engine although i didnt fit it for improved cooling purposes it improved cooling compaired to the std bmw mechanical pump.

i still use the same pump now on a 485bhp turbo engine, personally i dont think that the speed you circulate the water is that important as long as its fast enough not to boil in the head, circulating the water too fast just means that the water is leaving the rad before its properly cooled

Hi Graham,

Is that on your S14 engined car? If so I would love to see the details of your set up. I know a few people in Germany have tried it with the S14 and failed miserably, so I would love to know what you are doing right!

Cheers

Rob

[graham bahr]

rob yes its an S14 engine, i'll pm you a few details later rather than take the thread off topic

[Notso Swift]

Originally Posted by graham bahr

i've run them for years, first one was on a 170bhp 2.0 bmw engine although i didnt fit it for improved cooling purposes it improved cooling compaired to the std bmw mechanical pump.

i still use the same pump now on a 485bhp turbo engine, personally i dont think that the speed you circulate the water is that important as long as its fast enough not to boil in the head, circulating the water too fast just means that the water is leaving the rad before its properly cooled

I do agree about being too slow and the water suffering localised boiling.
However, when it comes to pumping too fast I think the truth is quite the opposite, you can't really circulate the water too fast. Less time in the rad is not important, because the same volume of water will be circulated through the system more often giving a greater opportunity for heat to be rejected.
Simplified, say 100 lpm exiting the block at 100 dC loses 10% and re-entrers the block at 90 dC. 200 lmp may loose 8% and re-entres the block at 92 dC, but it does it twice as often so in total you have rejected more heat. (measured in BTU or joules or what ever) Since the amount of heat created is a constant (based on the fuel being burnt) what happens in real life is the temp of the water coming out is only 98 dC vs 100 dC and it may enter at 91 dC.
The is a whole bunch of maths available for it, but fundamentally (if you don't corrupt the system by doing something like adding air though cavitiation) you can't go wrong by circulating the cooling liquid as fast as possible. But regardless of anything else KEEP THE BLOCK PRESSURE UP, that is just as important as anything else to prevent localised boiling

[CNHSS1]

Originally Posted by Notso Swift

But regardless of anything else KEEP THE BLOCK PRESSURE UP, that is just as important as anything else to prevent localised boiling

i have a davies craig pump fitted to my hillclimber (front engined, water rad in boot) and it does have some overheating issues on longer sprints (2 or 3 lappers). how do i check the block pressure? and how would i increase it if its too low? engine has no thermostat fitted currently so theres little in the way of 'restriction' in the flow path