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Cooling Thoughts
ken555 - 29/1/08 at 07:53 PM

With my mid engined (A-Series), Front radiatored, GTM coupe I had planned to plumb up the cooling system like this, with the heater taken from the pipes in the tunnel, almost at the heater position:-


But at idle the flow seems to be a bit lacking. So the new idea is this, using a switched booster pump on the heater circuit:-


My question is this, will this increase the flow from the engine, when needed with the booster pump,
or will the water take the easy path of flowing round just the radiator/heater matrix ?

minitici - 29/1/08 at 08:25 PM

You might just end up with the water circulating between the radiator and the heater matrix, especially with the restrictions of miles of pipe for the front mounted radiator.
I noticed that with my GTM, the water just does not flow at tick-over. It needed at leat 3500rpm to get the water flowing to the front rad. Then anything over 6500 rpm the pump cavitated and robbed the flow again
I ran standard heater pipes from the normal takeoff points to the matrix and these seemed to heat ok.
I would lose the mechanical pump and go for an electrical pump so that flow will be assured at all times.

r1_pete - 29/1/08 at 08:44 PM

Dont you need to go direct from the heater tap to the heater? in the position you have it it is not controlling anything other than flow out of the head.
Rgds.
Pete.

ken555 - 29/1/08 at 09:38 PM

quote:
Dont you need to go direct from the heater tap to the heater? in the position you have it it is not controlling anything other than flow out of the head.


There isn't a tap any more, just a take off, but quite common to feed it back to the top hose on mini's

ken555 - 29/1/08 at 09:42 PM

quote:
Originally posted by minitici
I would lose the mechanical pump and go for an electrical pump so that flow will be assured at all times.


Did wonder about running the booster in series with the mech pump, but scared it may restrict the flow a little when off, as it only has a 3/4" dia.

rusty nuts - 29/1/08 at 10:33 PM

The top hose on a Mini is the outlet , it would be better to plumb the heater from the outlet at no4 end of the cylinder head and return to the bottom hose as the original Mini.