Electric Water Pumps - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

guudasitgets · 12-21-2008, 11:38 AM

Anybody ever mess with electric water pumps. We are installing one with a variable controller on one of the race cars and will hope to see some top speed gains. I was looking into using the same kit on my road car for FE gains and i'm sure there would be some gains. It's a really neat setup, the controller throttles the pump up or down depending on the heat requirements, and you don't need a thermostat, it just runs as-needed. Cool stuff!

MetroMPG · 12-21-2008, 01:11 PM

I don't know anyone who has, but it makes a lot of sense.

How much would you spend to get that kind of setup in your car?

guudasitgets · 12-21-2008, 01:36 PM

on the race car it's a kit that you cut into the lower hose. The DC drive controller throttles the pump speed according to your cylinder head water temp at the highest spot. The race car kit totals about 500 bucks controller and all. But Summit has a 12 volt motor, tooth belt setup for Drag Race Cars I think I can adapt to my water pump and just use the racing controller. Summit sells the motor package for 80 bucks

MetroMPG · 12-21-2008, 02:30 PM

So, a motor to drive the OEM pump for $80? Any idea how much the controller will set you back?

I suppose you could always make your own controller, if you knew how to do that kind of stuff (Arduino).

guudasitgets · 12-21-2008, 06:30 PM

$245.00 for the inline pump In a Formula racing car there is little or no room for a separate motor. The controller is $276.00

Coyote X · 12-21-2008, 07:56 PM

You don't really have to have a controller. It is possible to just put a fan controller sensor in the head that kicks it on at like 120 degrees and just runs it full speed. The pumps are not that big and a windshield wiper motor from what little testing I have done should be big enough for a 3-4 cyl motor to keep cool with. I planned on doing this to my car at some point in the future but with as much stuff as I have lined up waiting to get done it might be a while.

The kit for the drag cars seems to be a bit bigger motor than what is really needed for a small car but the good thing about it is that it has all the brackets and stuff needed to make it a more or less bolt on.

If you have some random parts laying around an electric water pump could be put together really cheap and leaving the thermostat in the car means it could just be connected to the fuel pump relay so it runs when the engine is running without making the engine stay cold. I am not sure how much of a gain it would give with it running all the time though along with the higher load of pushing against a closed thermostat instead of circulating in more of a free flow thermostat free setup.

Christ · 12-21-2008, 08:36 PM

They have a kit for the SBC motors that actually bolts on to the block, replacing the OEM water pump, and the motor is an integrated unit (no maintenance, throw it away and get another one). I don't remember the cost or any of the details, but they installed one on HPTV awhile back, and IIRC, it netted like a 7HP gain at ~5kRPM.

Not that that data would have much to do with a real world scenario or FE gains. But I think there is also a Honda kit, and several other kits that are engine-specific. (The Honda kit that I saw, was pre-production when I was checking it out, never found out if it was produced or not, nor saw any tests on it, but it had a OEM pump replacement, to keep the timing belt sitting correctly, which was just a housing, then used a pump on the water pipe on the back of the engine to actually flow the coolant.)