Heat torture cooling system test... Exploder mech vrs Tauras electric fans...

And Im sending this from a truck stop somewhere between pheonix amd L.A!!! Temps have yet to get above 200 with my A/C running....without it...i cwn expect 15 degrees cooler.

Congrats on the excellent cooling results you are getting. it sure makes a difference for the enjoyment of going for a drive!!

It's only 95 here today and I just came back from an hour drive in my Bronco with my temps never getting 1 degree over t-stat temp. I only generate heat when I work the engine.

Here's Galen's quote:

" I think you are little off about the pressure though...the system is pressurizing because of the heat not the speed of the pump....its a flow/volume thing...the flowkooler is doubling the amount of coolant between the sink and the source between idle and 3k rpms"

Sorry, but after doing this myself several times on my rig and on other EB's with the same serp setup I know that it's pressure and has nothing to do with heat. I'd never heard of this test before trying it and pretty much called it BS, which I"m sure others that are reading this are calling it. Try it with a worn out pump, then try it with your flowkooler. You'll see a huge difference.

Test is done like this. Remove the radiator cap, engine is cold, plumb a good gauge (I used 3 different ones to verify accuracy-one was liquid filled) in the intake just before the t-stat. I used the temp sender access port.

Start the engine, get oil pressure and then rev it to 2200 rpm. No heat build up here. This is all done before 1 minute has passed.

I got hammered before on this "test" hence the separate tests on different but identical engines, the different gauges and verifying with Ron at Ron Davis radiator that I was performing the test correctly.

Steam is evident btw the water jacket and the block (not some 1/2" layer that some may be thinking), the more pressure you have in the block, the way I understand it is the less of a steam layer and therefore you achieve much better cooling because of the efficient heat transfer with the higher pressure.

There are two different pressures so to speak in the cooling system, block pressure and then when heat builds up in the system, the coolant expands and you have cap pressure also.

When we throttled to just over 3,000 rpm on both engines I hit 22#'s pressure and the other test engine hit 28#'s pressure.

Hey Brian....good write up. That rad size for the Raptor is similar to the two core aluminum one I made for my Bronco 18"x38". In any project I always aim for the largest surface area on the rad as possible. If you have too much cooling its easier to take some away than to add more on. I run 2 -16" puller fans on the core with no shroud. The fans are mounted on brackets, not those crappy plastic zip tie things that destroy your core. The core is completely exposed where the fans do not cover. My 396 pulling a 22' travel trailer across BC in the summer would only get to about 195 in 90 degree heat pulling a long hill. When the hood is open and you put your hand behind the fans when they are running, the fan nearest the inlet does most of the work.
Block pressure you talk about is very important .....some of the race engines we used to work with would have pressures around 60 psi which would give smaller rad and a smaller frontal area for less drag. Of coarse those are not streetable engines. For each psi raise it gives you 3 degrees higher boiling point, but if your like me seeing it get over 200 is uncomfortable even though its no where near boilover.

One more thing to try but its not cheap is Evans coolant its a water free coolant so its boiling point is much higher and will drop your temps by an average of 10 degrees sometimes more plus you never have to change it and it won't react to having different metals ie aluminium intake or heads.
http://m.summitracing.com/parts/evn-ec53001

Thanks Gary... I'd copy just about everything off your Bronco if I could!! Although you know I went to the dark side with my tranny... ;D

Bigger is always better...that's what my thoughts are too...as I posted earlier, I'd just cover up my radiator with cardboard every winter so I could get some heat...

My 4x4x2 box (dropped as low as possible) only allows 15" btw it and my hood and 38" would be headlight bezel to headlt bezel. How'd ya squeeze in 18"?

Good to hear from ya! Hope you aren't burning up that way like we are!


I like the benefits of that coolant till I saw the price! gulp... : )

Yeah the only reason I'm still considering it is the fact I will never have to flush the system and buy antifreeze I'm just thinking in the long run the savings might add up plus the added benefits listed before.

Its been an awesome summer so far, I love the heat. Not as hot as your area since we are on the coast. When you coming up for some wheelin'.?

I use a f150 box unconverted and mounted about 6" further back with the pitman arm forward. This gave me so much more room for a large rad.
Just checked the size of my rad, overall 38" wide 17" tall, not including the cap. The actual core is 16.25"x 34", a nice fit for the two 16" fans

I am interested to hear more on the waterpumps. I run an Edelbrock pump but cant say its any better since I did no back to back tests. Everything changed at once on my setup.

I don't run the Evans stuff, a friend does and it does help. Yes, it is expensive.

I run the evans waterless coolant in my 34 ford as a last resort I figured i would burn it down. changed every cooling component at least once trying to cure the overheating problem. I think my problem is in the heads or block. core shift, thin spots something. I have pegged the temp gauge in traffic at 250 degrees. doesn't seam to be a problem, their literature said at that time you could run the temp up 400 degrees.

FWIW I ran a Stewart Components pump on the '67 Ranchero's AFB'd mild 302. Last that I looked, not that long ago, Stewart didn't have an Exploder pump offering. I went thru a bunch of changes trying to cool that car flat towing the dune buggy thru the Mojave Desert. Nothing made a huge difference, but each was incrementally cooler.

Then I put on the Stewart pump in prep for towing up to run the Dusy-Irshim trail. Huge improvement! After that I had to run with cardboard in the cooler months (SoCA winters, sheesh!) just to get the heater to work within my 10 mile morning commute. Highly recommended for non-Exploder set-ups.

BTW, the pump that came off (Pep Boys special bought by the PO) looked pretty good. No cavitation erosion on the impeller, but the gaps probably could have been tighter. I recycled it anyway.

Waterpump brands that the two big reputable companies I spoke with about this 2 yrs ago both recommended Mortorcraft, Edelbrock, and Stewart. No others at that time. I have not compared new pumps back to back.

Exactly like my friend of the "MISF" mentioned : ), I am sure if someone replaced a worn out pump that didn't even "look" bad with one of the above pumps or a similar reputable brand they would get excellent improvements in cooling. That's why I tried this with back to back tests with the exact same conditions on the Tauras vrs Exploder. Wish I could get a Stewart for the strrroker... that would be a great test!

I'd love to do independent testing for stuff like this, I'm a variables guy-really enjoy that kind of stuff. Maybe someday if I retire I could drive my wife nuts buying new parts and bolting them on and off testing stuff like this year round... ;D

Love is finding that one special someone that you want to annoy the shiat out of for the rest of your life.

Point was that the Pep Boys pump looked pretty good, and clearly wasn't. In my case all of the other things that I'd done surrounding that good looking pump resulted in a system that was hard to get to warm up once I replaced the pump. From then on, if in doubt, replace it - no matter how good it looks.

Bringing this thread back up just to add a little fun-fact about Flowkooler.

Way back when, when the company was still better known as Brassworks (they still are, but the Flowkooler pump name is more recognizable to most of us nowadays) they got their start into the high-performance water pump market (late-'70's or early-'80's maybe?) by selling either the impeller modification kit to enhance the customer's existing pump, or an off-the-shelf pump with a modified impeller thingy already installed to save you the trouble.
And all that high performance part was, was a small disc of galvanized sheet metal and some rivets!

What the installer would do would be to drill some holes through the existing impeller blades (hoping to get them centered correctly!) and rivet the disc to the backside of their existing impeller. Basically to close off the open face and close what was essentially a too-big gap between the back open face of the impeller and the engine block or timing cover.
Changed the flow pretty radically for such a simple thing. But it was a common fan blade "ducting" design brought to the automotive world.
Seems cheesy now in our high-tech world, but at the time a very simple and elegant solution to a problem.

They used that design to good effect on many pumps for awhile, but eventually went the direction we know today, which is some VERY high-tech custom proprietary impeller designs. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, those impellers look pretty impressive and give some pretty impressive results.
It's not just flow volume and pressure that are improved with the designs, but of course anti-cavitation properties at higher rpm levels, AND lowers parasitic drag and the ensuing horsepower gains. All big deals in the real world.

Even though Stewart is at the high end of water pumps and probably found more often on race cars than the street, I consider Flowkooler to simply be a less expensive alternative. But very close to, if not equal in performance to a Stewart pump.
That might vary by pump of course, as each company has different impellers for each application. But both are top notch.
The fact that some applications are not covered by Stewart then should not be a stumbling block or a source of concern if Flowkooler offers the alternative.

I've worked with both companies over the years and while you might find more Stewarts on a race car, I wouldn't even hesitate to run a Flowkooler on any of my engines.
I've been using them since the early eighties and have never been disappointed.

Anyway, just a bunch of fun FYI stuff. This thread was referenced in another thread about cooling and I wanted to relate my Flowkooler memories and experiences.
Not ashamed to say we sell them either. Those and the Edelbrock pumps have been excellent products. But the whole "home installed disc" thing makes me smile remembering those days.

Paul

IF, and that's a big if, but IF I get my 4 link, ORI, slash everything build done in time for this fall's wheeling...then I want to try the FlowKooler wtrpump...

well, I spent 10 months, the last 5 months 14-16hr/days 7 days/week and I finished the DAY we left for Moab... everything worked great...

I will update on the cooling system...I did not have time to install the FlowKooler...heck, I didn't have time to even grind down the plasma cut fender openings (and a lot of other stuff)... hopefully an update soon

I still have my Brassworks pump from the early 90's.
Still doing fine.

I like your apples to apples comp. but you may be wrong about the aluminum radiator cooling better than the copper radiator. I think the problem is comparing the two radiators same to same. Look at usradiator.com , they show the hi eff. aluminum rad. cooling 20% better than OEM and the optima copper cooling 40% better then OEM. As US radiator sells both I don't see why they would lie about either.

Try a volvo fan. Just like a taurus fan but smaller. I've never had an overheating issue again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3CuauZ5Bkg

From my reading neither C/B or AL has a net cooling advantage over the other, they both cool the same assuming like size, fin density etc. Advantage of aluminum to the OEM's is cost. Disadvantage of aluminum to off-roaders is field repair-ability. When full of coolant I doubt the weight difference is worth considering. Disadvantage of AL is the possibility for galvanic corrosion.

Given the small size of of EB's radiator I think an electric fan without EFI is a really bad plan. With EFI it might work, depends on the specific combination. The only reason that I can see for a pusher fan is when the A/C needs to work better in traffic and the cooling system has no trouble keeping up i.e. the radiator is large enough that the pusher fan doesn't cause an airflow restriction for the cooling system.

A few years ago us radiator had a test eng. comp for aluminum v copper and the end result was both cooled the same with the new radiator design The main downside of al in a EB is the body flexes causing the radiator to crack, more so in off road driving so maybe not a big deal for the on road only EBs.
PS I like the mechanical fans better.

Everybody likes pictures.
Here's a picture that I had in my file comparing a stocker and a Flowkooler pump impellers.

These are scrap metal prices:

Bare Bright Copper $2.25-2.30*/LB

Plumber's Brass $0.90-1.00*/LB

Aluminum Extrusions (clean) $0.45-.55*/LB

Scrap prices follow the demand for the metal relative to the availability and cost to produce it new from raw material.

Since aluminum is half (or less) the cost of copper or brass and car manufacturers will change designs to save a penny per car it is easy to see why modern cars all have aluminum radiators.
Nothing to do with it working better (or worse for that matter), for them it is all about the money.