electric water pump

[dschwartz]

Help Ford Barn
I have an electric water pump on a 8ba flathead. I need to know about bottom water hose connection to radiator, do use one hose connection and block off one of bottom hose connection on the radiator? What do I use for a thermostat to control the electric pump?

[JSeery]

Little difficult to tell, but looks like there are provisions for two lower inputs to the pump (part of the motor mounts). I would think you would need the two to get the volume. The engine block is essentially two separate cooling systems, right and left.

But I am not sure I understand how the water path would work. Looks like the two inlets in the motor mounts go into the block where the lower half of the OEM pumps would be. And then the top half of the OEM mount appears to connect to the water pump. That water path doesn't look feasible to me.

[Talkwrench]

Agreed... It looks to me that the pump would just move the coolant one way..?

[koates]

Your non original new electric water pump would have to feed/pump water into BOTH of the lower water intakes on your engine block. You just cant block off one intake because that blocked off side of the block would quickly overheat. You could use two electric pumps but that would double the electrical current draw and cause the alternator to work harder. It takes horse power to drive the alternator. Anyway whats wrong with fitting the two original belt driven pumps which are a better option in my opinion. Regards, Kevin.

[JSeery]

Is the copper looking tube the water inlet to the pump? If it is, it doesn't look anyway near large enough to feed both sides of the engine.

[drolston]

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Finally, - a solution to overheating in traffic! What I see is electric driven centrifugal pump (not unlike our stock punps) in the middle with two outlets going to where the original mechanical pump vanes would go. Fine to pump water in there.

I see the copper pipe as the pickup for the radiator bottom hose, going to the center area of the pump rotor vane. What I don't see is how the water pumped into both sides of the block gets out of the heads and into the top of the radiator.

Regarding a device to turn the pump on and off: First you must have a high current capacity relay to handle the pump current draw. A starter solenoid is overkill, but would work. Then you need an off/on thermostat in each head set to trip the solenoid at the desired operating temperature. You could actually use two stock left/driver temperature sensors, as that unit is a simple switch which shorts to ground when the temperature gets to about 200 degrees. Wire each bank to the solenoid, so that when either head reaches temperature, the pump runs. Having only one water pickup at the bottom of the radiator will tend to equalize temperature between banks.

The flathead is fine to run at 200 or a little over, but you will need to run a pressure cap of at least 4 psi. All of this assumes that you have a very strong and well shrouded electric fan on a radiator of sufficient capacity to cool a flathead sitting in traffic on that 95 degree day, with a tail wind.

One of the benefits of this unique setup is that you get maximum pump flow even when the engine is at idle. And when things get really hot, you could shut off the engine but still run the water pump and the fan for a few minutes until things cool down

[tubman]

A couple of things - Those electric water pumps are designed to supply enough flow to satisfy high horsepower engines (usually SBC's, but also others). Therefore, I think it would supply more than enough flow for a flathead. Given the restriction built into thermostats, I would also think the copper inlet would be large enough. I think that the O/P's problems will be with the electrical control of this setup. If he can solve that (which he is asking us), it will probably work fine. Unfortunately, this is probably the wrong place to ask the questions he needs answered.

[Paul Bennett]

Originally Posted by dschwartz

...
What do I use for a thermostat to control the electric pump?

.
Easy. Use a motor controller to control water flow with thermocouple input. Juice to the pump off with a cold engine. Gradually increase pump motor speed as the engine warms up.

[40cpe]

I can't imagine the pump not needed virtually all the time after the engine warms up. Certainly not enough off time to warrant temperature controls. Why not control the temp with fan/thermostats and let the pump run?

[expavr]

Originally Posted by 40cpe

I can't imagine the pump not needed virtually all the time after the engine warms up. Certainly not enough off time to warrant temperature controls. Why not control the temp with fan/thermostats and let the pump run?

Bingo! I have a Meziere electric water pump on a hemi that pumps 55 GPM constantly. The water temp in the system is controlled by the electric fan which cycles off/on as needed thru the use of heat probe in the radiator. As I recall the motor on the Meziere pump draws 15 amps or thereabouts.
Forgot the thermostat and 15# radiator cap which also control the water temp.

[expavr]

Originally Posted by dschwartz

Help Ford Barn
I have an electric water pump on a 8ba flathead. I need to know about bottom water hose connection to radiator, do use one hose connection and block off one of bottom hose connection on the radiator? What do I use for a thermostat to control the electric pump?

Whether or not you can get enough coolant flow thru a single outlet on the radiator will in part be dictated by the pump design and how many GPM it will flow. If a single outlet from the radiator isn't large enough or the pump inlet is too small there is a good chance the vanes on the pump will want to cavitate which can introduce tiny air bubbles in the system thereby reducing the effectiveness of the coolant. This is a long way of saying that IMO you're in the "trial and error" phase of your design so don't be afraid to experiment. Were I in your shoes I'd block off one of the radiator outlets, enlarge the inlet on the pump to match the cross sectional area of the outlet and run it. If your pump is designed to produce 25-30 GPM your system should be able to provide enough flow to keep the engine's thermal demands within tolerance. As suggested by drolston a shrouded electric fan tied into the system with a sensor or on/off toggle would be the frosting on the cake. As an example I have a 3500 CFM fan that when it kicks on can drop the coolant temp 30* in the blink of an eye. One final thought until you get the basic system sorted out I would run it without stats. My hats off to you for trying something different.
Les Williams

[deuce_roadster]

With all that bulky looking stuff it doesn't look like there would be room for a radiator, or a fan. Overheating can be controlled without all that drama starting with a CLEAN block. My cars don't overheat even with the rare 100 degree days here.

[Frank Miller]

Hard to believe you got this far and now this question. It looks like you've modified the block so there is no coolant running through the heads. Given that the pump will draw evenly from both sides you can have one inlet to the radiator and two outlets at the bottom. You can get a modern car fan switch and wire it to a relay to tun the pump on and off. The part i cannot tell you is where is the best place to locate that switch. You can have one one either bank where the hotter one would turn on first. It would just be two switches in parallel.