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That old saying that goes " a dollar not spent is a dollar saved" comes to mind here, rigging up a reliable system that will pay for itself in fuel savings is difficult, even more difficult is having a system that is 100% reliable as an engine overheat can cost a lot of dollars. Until you work out an almost failsafe fuel saving system via an electric pump, you can save some parasitic loss by running the waterpump v belt on the loose side. Let it slip a bit, and if you want to retain full throttle/high heat load capability then you could rig up an electrically activated belt tensioner for those full throttle moments. You could run with this idea and polish the v belt pulleys to a high shine to ensure that the belt will slip easily. (don't blame me if it overheats ).
Power transmission via v belt is around 97 ish percent efficient if my memory serves me correctly, I'm wondering what the losses would be turning the pump with an electric motor, I suppose that will depend on where the power to run it is coming from.
I have to wonder what happens to coolant flow pressure when the thermostat has not yet opened and the thermostat is bypassing coolant via a small return pipe/orifice to the engine, surely coolant flow is hindered in comparison to the main radiator flow path, maybe there is a gain in efficiency lurking in the bypass side of the cooling system!
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