Board logo

Mid engined cars
pdm - 12/10/10 at 07:08 PM

Hi

Quite a few mid engined kits seem to use front wheel engines/gearboxes these days.

How does a standard water pump fare moving that water all the way up and down a car if you fit rads in the front ?

cheers
Paul

MakeEverything - 12/10/10 at 07:10 PM

quote:
Originally posted by pdm
Hi

Quite a few mid engined kits seem to use front wheel engines/gearboxes these days.

How does a standard water pump fare moving that water all the way up and down a car if you fit rads in the front ?

cheers
Paul


My rad is mid mounted, just to the side of the engine. For putting the rad up front, i would use an electric pump.

hillbillyracer - 12/10/10 at 07:14 PM

In autograss racer they often run the other way with the engine in the front & the rad in the back to keep it clear of mud etc. It worked fine on mine (Rover 2.016v M series) & I dont know that anyone else suffered problems, but I did find that I needed bleed points at the highest points front & rear to get ther air out when filling the system. But that would go for any system really.

ken555 - 12/10/10 at 09:12 PM

I have no problems, the added length of pipework act as secondary radiators.

MikeFellows - 12/10/10 at 09:54 PM

I ran a charge cooler on a vx220 with the rad at the front, used an electric pump for that with no issues.

Madinventions - 12/10/10 at 10:48 PM

I have no problem with mine. The engine is a Zetec SE 1.7 from a Puma, and I'm using a Polo radiator. The pipework from front to back is mostly 32mm aluminium.

At motorway speeds, the coolant sits at 89 degrees constantly, and there seems to be plenty of spare cooling capacity in the radiator.

I've not heard of any specific problems regarding water pumps in mid-engined configurations?

Ed.

RazMan - 12/10/10 at 11:21 PM

My car uses a Polo rad up front and a Davies Craig electric water pump. If anything the setup is too efficient and in cold weather I struggle to get the V6 temp above 80 degrees - I'm actually considering the old school method of bunging a bit of cardboard in front of the rad to warm things up a bit!

blakep82 - 13/10/10 at 12:20 AM

i spent a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing, as long as your system is properly filled, as far as i can work out, the size of the system doesn't make any difference. any water pushed is equally replaced by water coming back, water pushed up is replaced with water coming down, can't really explain it well. should be fine

pdm - 13/10/10 at 07:38 AM

Great - thanks everyone for your help.