electric or mechanical h20 pump and why? i am building a street/strip mav.....mostly street but will see the track about 10 times a year! i live just outside detroit if that makes any difference....thanks guys
My personal choice is electric. One less component dragin the engine down and it gives me a better option to run the belts different.
if money is not an issue go electric. i wouldnt go with a cheap brand. i personally run a meziere water pump and have had now issues with it. they are a good company, very helpful. if money is a concern then a regular replacement one from the parts store will do just fine. no need to waste money on any aftermarket belt driven water pump.
The electric pump draws from the alternator, so actually it also puts a load on the engine! How much?, I have no idea! One + thing I can think of is that it's circulating fast all the time, so it would be beneficial for the hot weather here.
Like Bryant said, money is not an issue I'd go with electric and my personal favorite is CSR. One of their pumps is on the Maverick and has been there since 1990, was rebuilt once and is still going. I just checked everything and replaced the O rings and it's ready to go again.
Car Craft did a shootout on waterpumps not long ago. Of course, it was small block Chevy, but they leaned toward an electric pump for no HP drain, without figuring in the added load on the alternator ... so I will yell on their test results ... they have to be brighter than that. Maybe in a drag strip only/no alternator world, but no regular street use. How do electric pumps hold up in the long haul? ... Interested to hear some users feedback there. What I did find interesting is that the stock GM water pump took 8 HP to drive it and the Weiand Action Plus only took 3. To me, that speaks volumes. The next water pump I need, I will be looking into one of these. They make them for 302s/351s and 5.0 versions too. I look at electric water pumps, and my gut says that is making things more complicated (and possibly more trouble). I tend to lean toward keeping things simple.
I'm kinda the same way. Electric would be sweet, but you are going to be running a belt system anyway. And, if the non-electric w/p fails somewhere, you can go to the parts store and buy something that would get you home.
I've installed quite a few Meziere water pumps on mod motored Marauders Mustangs and a few Lightinings and out of all of them I had one that didn't work when I got it(dropped hard during shipping and they took care of it) and one that failed during service and Meziere took care of it too.(that car had about 25K miles since install) We ran before and after on a chassis dyno on a Lightning and a Marauder and saw 9hp to the tires increase on both vehicles. Meziere claims the main advantage is constant optimum coolant flow at all speeds since engine speed is no longer a factor and more consistent coolant temperatures. If I don't run a Meziere, I'll run an engine driven one. (that's my preference of course):Handshake ...and they are fantastic to deal with on the phone!
I have an electric which is going on my maverick. One question I have though is how do you hook up the heater hose and the bypass hose that goes to the thermostat housing?
If the pump doesn't have the provisions for the hoses, you don't. Race only pumps generally don't have the nipples or holes for them. If it has block off plugs leading to the impeller inlet(return/suction) side, you can use those, if not and you want to run them, you might have to make an adapter that feeds water back into the lower radiator hose. The bypass can be run from the intake port where the heater inlet tap is using a smaller line if you are running a thermostat.
InjectedMav, have you actually done this? I'd like to see a picture of your setup or someones setup like this. This is something I need to start fuguring out real quick.
I haven't had to make that modification myself. I was asked the question before by a customer that had a Mustang that had been modified for as a drag only car and he was trying to make it streetable again with as little teardown as possible, so that was my solution at the time. We looked at using a piece of steel tubing the inside diameter of the lower hose and about 4 in long and welding 2 nipples into the side of the tubing the size of the hoses, in his case 5/8". If you want the best corrosion resistance, use stainless steel. Your other option would be to find a moulded hose from a local parts house that may work with 2 hoses leading from it. Some of our oil cooler equipped vehicles run something like that but the hoses are all different shapes. Just for the record, he installed an engine driven pump.
Theoretically everything draws from the Battery, the alt. just charges the Batt. So any extra draw would only be electrical not mechanical. Theory is sometimes not reality.
Well... not really. That implies that all the current leaving the alternator goes through the battery first before going through the loads.
