Paul-
After studying the cutdown water pump housing pictures, I'm still a bit
unclear on where the new intake ends. Looking in the housing, it
appears there are 2 different directions the water could flow. >From
the pics, I can't tell if the intake pipe is cutoff at an angle before
welding (thus leaving both paths open) or if it is cutoff square (thus
leaving only the farthest port open.
Got any more pics that tell the tale?
Mark Supinski
What Mazda did on early engines is use a special thermostat that
opens the
main water passage from the block to the rad and closes a by pass
passage as the
engine warms up.
This is done to speed the warm up of the engine for emissions
purposes. One of the
negative side effects of this original design is it restricts the
water flow out of
the block and to the rad. We have eliminated this feature to improve
the water flow,
reduce the height of the pump and reduce the HP requirements of the
pump. We
do this by welding in a new partition blocking the old bypass passage.
Mazda essentially kept this by pass feature for the RX8 pump but did
away
with the flow restriction.
Ok -
Quick question before metal starts getting cut & welded. The mod I am
making to the water pump housing means the new intake pipe is strictly
used to connect the overflow container to the cooling system, yes? And
there is no reason to use such a huge intake pipe - I am thinking
something on the order of 1/2" ID would work just fine. True?
Mark Supinski
----------------------------------------------------------
The intake to the pump is not modified. It is the outlet from the block
part that we change. The strange thing about the Mazda water pump is they routed
the water coming out of the block through the water pump. In other words
they did it all in one casting. On a Chevy V8 by contrast this is not the case.
The water comes out of the block through the intake manifold and another fitting
that contains the thermostat. It is called a Goose Neck I think. :)
The over flow container is not really an overflow container. What is is
is an air space tank that allows the coolant to expand. It is pressurize to
25 PSI or so and when the the pressure exceeds that coolant flows into
a catch can through the pressure cap. When the engine cools off, and
consequently the pressure goes negative in the block, coolant is drawn
back in from the catch can. The catch can be a large plastic Coke
bottle or just about anything.
Here are a few 3D's. In the first 3D the catch can is not shown. Only
the pressurize container is shown. Ed Klepeis built mine from deep drawn Zero
manufacturing aluminum cans that I supplied but a Corvette
version will work well.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
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