notslow

Anyone with real world knowledge of how much gain you can get with an electric water pump? What is your set up? I am trying to decide if it is worth the expense. Also what do I do with my serpentine belt if I do go with the electric?

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'89 GTA 350, edelbrock headers, 3" exhaust, Flowmaster muffler, Crane HI-6 ignition, cone filter, KYB AGX shocks and struts, urethane bushings and motor mounts, more on the way. My fast car is a '91 NSX, B&M adjustable fuel pressure regulator, Flowmaster exhaust, no cats, Cantrell Concepts Ram air system. Still love my GTA.

Apeiron

I don't know for sure, but I would think the only way an electric water pump would save horsepower would be because you can turn it off sometimes.

vortech305

close, a electric water pump uses what??? Electricity to function not pulleys, so its sort of a pulley delete,less drag therefore creating minor hp.

Apeiron

Where does the electricity come from? The alternator, which has to work harder and creates more drag, therefore losing minor hp.

Cosmik Debris

The electric pump may be slightly more efficient than a mechanical one but Apeiron is correct.

Chrome

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the electric water pumps are a complete waste of money unless you just want to say you have one...

Okay, Say it takes 5 horsepower to turn the pump itself and displace the water. Now your mechanical is a direct drive (minus the losses due to belt slippage).

Now your electric water pump itself still has to produce that 5hp. So it will take X amount of electricity to do it. 5hp worth right?! Now your alternator is not 100% effecient. Say the alternator is 80% effecient. That means the alternator is going to pull 6.25hp from your engine. That's a loss of 1.25hp to go to an electric waterpump. Maybe I'm totally wrong here but it makes sense to me...

Anyone else?!!?

notslow

Well, in theory. The direct drive DC motor is more efficient than running off of the pulley,especially at higher RPM where the pulley driven pump is supposedly wasting power by turning much faster than needed. Like I said, in theory. I just want someone who has one to tell me if they got a better 1/4 mile time or dyno improvement. If I can actually gain some horsepower. I would do it. Anyone know first hand? How about the edelbrock pumps? Anyone try these? Are they worth the money?

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'89 GTA 350, edelbrock headers, 3" exhaust, Flowmaster muffler, Crane HI-6 ignition, cone filter, KYB AGX shocks and struts, urethane bushings and motor mounts, more on the way. My fast car is a '91 NSX, B&M adjustable fuel pressure regulator, Flowmaster exhaust, no cats, Cantrell Concepts Ram air system. Still love my GTA.

IROC&ROLL

To really see any advantage of an electric water pump you would also have to install an alternator cutout. When enabled, the cutout opens the field circuit to the alternator during WOT. At that point everything is running off the battery, therefore you have no loss from a water pump and only very slight loss from a free spinning, no load alternator. This is not an ideal situation for an electronic fuel injected car... they like to have more voltage than a 12v battery supplies.

Personally I would rather add a few horsepower than try to save them that way. Of course my idea of racing is to drive my car to the track, pull straight into the staging lanes, idle thru the lanes with A/C chilling and CD blasting, pull up to the line, then nail it when the last yellow lights up. Screw uncapping headers, icing the plenum, pushing the car thru the staging lanes, etc. Well, that's just my idea of street racing... on a track.

CamaroMike

From what I have read a conventional water pump consumes apporximately 15HP between 6000 and 7000 RPM. Most electric water pumps are 15 amp units max. It takes 1HP to make 50 Amps on a conventional alternator. 15Amps/50Amps = .3 or 30% of 1HP So it takes 1/3HP to drive an electric pump vs. 15 HP on a mechanical setup. Every 10-15HP is worth approximately .1 sec in the quarter on a 3500lb vehicle. I have seen people pay $800 just to port their heads for 15HP and they love it! I would say a $200 water pump is a good deal for .1 sec in the quarter! Especially if you are fighting a time barrier like me. I just ran a 13.09 at 1300FT and I would love to hit 12.99 for 200 bucks!

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84 Camaro ZZ4 with HOT cam. Ported Heads, Installed Larger Race-Flo Valves, RPM Air Gap Intake, and 1 3/4" SLP Headers (Best 60',Quarter Mile, MPH) (1.88, 12.91, 106.77)
Other Mods: You name it and I have probably changed it.

2001 Dodge Ram Quad Cab 5.9L 4*2

The Bowtie
ASE Certified Auto Tech
LIVE AND DIE BY THE ALMIGHTY BOWTIE!

ploegi

Only one problem with the electric water pump. I beleive, if you read further down the description, it will say "for drag racing use only, not adequate for street driven motor vehicles"

I don't think the electric water pump has the capacity to circulate enough water to cool a street driven engine. Although, I am not sure if this is a volume of coolant moved, or reliability issue.......

Would be an expensive experiment to find out it would not work....... The fact that no one appears to be running one would lead me to beleive this is not a good idea for street cars.....

Daz

iTrader: (1)

wonder if a clutch pulley is possible..release or slow down above a certain RPM..

stupiDaz

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

The LT1 guys are routinely seeing a decent improvement with them, of course with them it’s a no brainer (the stock pump runs off the timing chain drive, so you don’t have to work anything out with pulleys, eliminates a common oil leak, and is cheaper the a stock replacement).

Advantages: always runs at the same optimized speed, no excessive loss (HP and flow) at high rpm’s because of cavitation, you can run it in the pits to cool the motor better then just using the engine fan, if your battery is properly charged before the run it will not draw nearly as much engine power (the power used by the alternator is dependent on how much of a draw there is on it, with a properly charged battery and the accessories off it should be minimal for most of a pass).

The argument that it is less efficient because you are converting mechanical energy to electrical and back is true over the long term, but a WOT run is different and this problem is irrelevant in that case.

If you want to see what you’d gain, you could get an idea by pulling your belt before making a pass (the car will survive a ¼ mile pass without any belts). You’ll gain a little more because you’ll loose the drag of the PS and Alt, but you’ll loose a little because you’re battery will be lower at the end of the pass effecting ignition and the car will be warmer, so it works out to be about even. Most cars gain .15-.2s, my brother does this regularly and knows that it’s worth exactly .17 in his car.

RyanSS

I have heard that the electric water pumps don't have the power to cool a street engine, since just 12V is not enough for it.
Anybody have experience with this?

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89 RS parts car
Daily driver 91 RS auto LO3 70k, 14x3 K&N Open element, cat-back delete.
Coming soon: 350, headers, loudmouth exhaust.

notslow

Actually 14.4 volts. The question still stands. Do they pump enough? CSI claims 37 gallons per minute. That sounds like a lot. It draws 5.8 amps. Does anybody have one of these on a street car?

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'89 GTA 350, edelbrock headers, 3" exhaust, Flowmaster muffler, Crane HI-6 ignition, cone filter, KYB AGX shocks and struts, urethane bushings and motor mounts, more on the way. My fast car is a '91 NSX, B&M adjustable fuel pressure regulator, Flowmaster exhaust, no cats, Cantrell Concepts Ram air system. Still love my GTA.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

yes, they pump plenty, just get one that is designed for more then a couple of dragstrip passes...

RyanSS

Do you have one Crossfire?

John Millican

iTrader: (1)

CSI claims 37 gpm? That would be no matter what rpm since an electric motor spins at one speed.
For the price of a CSI, you could buy a Stewart performance mech pump, their stage 4 one flows 34 gpm at IDLE, it skyrockets from there. Maybe there's a reason all Nascar cars use Stewart.
Here's the data I quoted.
http://www.stewartcomponents.com/ede...comparison.htm


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86 Camaro Sport
383 Speed-O-Motive Crate Engine, Raptor 700R4 Tranmission, Trick Flow Twisted Wedge G2's, 58mm Accel TB, 3.73 Auburn Pro, SLP Cold Air Induction and Headers, Hooker Cat-back, Serpentine Belt Setup, Dual IROC Fans, Jamex springs, 16" IROC Rims, 36mm/24mm Sway Bars, Global West Steering Brace. Hotchkis Rear LCA's,Panhard Bar and SFC's.
My Camaro Project

devwolf

Just throwing a random engineer's 2 cents in here.

To answer the question directly first... Does an electric pump get you more horsepower? Short answer is yes. Note I did not say it "creates" HP, it simply frees some up from reduced parasitic drag from the drive belt (I shoudnt have to say that but you know... Flamers be flaming). Kind of like a windage tray would do by keeping oil drag off the crank by letting it drip down but not splash back up under RPM. Thats why drag race engines use oil pans equipt with them (and LS engines have them bolted up to the main caps) but it also prevents the engine from throwing too much up above the pan and threatening to deprime the pump at very high sustained RPM.

Does it still have drag? Well that really depends on the alternator, but yes, there will be some drag from the extra amperage draw. Though because of an electric motor's much higher efficinecy, this drag is barely visible on a dyno. The major bennifit here is that the drag doesn't scale up with RPM as a mechanical pump would. Its always a fixed draw based on the RPM its running at. And back to efficiency, remember even at idle, the alternator drag really isnt a factor. Thats like saying your car is slower with the headlights on. Technically speaking, yes thats correct, buuut not really a real world factor. Same can be said for fuel miliage. The drag from your AC compressor is going to have a massively bigger impact on mileage compared to an electrical draw from your lighting system on the alternator.

The other major bennifit to them, and the one most people use them for (as 5hp less drag is nothing to write home about), is their ability to cool the engine, especially at idle. Mechanicals are based on RPM. Make a pass on a track and your cooling system has to catch up as the heat travels through the metal to the coolant after a pass. Block and head material plays a major factor here as far as thermal conductivity goes. For example aluminum is a rather poor conductor compared to other metals, like copper, but its also got much less thermal mass, and what heat does travel though it, moves quickly. Aluminum heads tend to have higher exhaust temps because they are pushing it out that way rather than absorbing it. This is why its said that aluminum heads can do about half a point higher in compression, its not strength, its because they cool better and cooler temps mean less detonation potential when youre running very high compressions, which can also mean youre able to run cheaper fuel at the lower "high" end ratios.

But back to the point... Make a pass at the strip and youll sit at idle in the pit lane while the cooling system catches up slowly at idle with a mechanical. You also have to have her running to spin it, and this obviously slows down the process. Turn it off and the system cant do jack about the heat. But with an electric, you can shut her off, leave the pump and radiator fan on, and cool it down way faster (many times this is precisely why you see toggle switches for the fan and pump in a race car). Just make sure your battery is charged and in good health. Electric pumps can also be at full RPM the entire time, staging lane or not, meaning you can make your next pass sooner. And at a lower temp, as these things often flow 3 times the volume as youe mechanical at idle.

As you build your engine up and raise things like the compression ratio, thermal efficiency raises. This means better burns and thus better fuel economy in some cases (if displacement is the same but you add dome pistons or a smaller combustion chamber). It also makes for a cleaner burn which is great if you live in an emmissions regulated state. But with better thermal efficiency comes more heat. This is why you may have heard that high performance engines or forced induction engines run hotter and have trouble cooling themselves (essentially raises the PSI in the chamber, which can be seen as a higher compression ratio). Well an electric pump doesnt just put less drag on the engine or have better flow at idle, they also flow more coolant overall, and this means better cooling on the same radiator and fan setups. And a cool engine is a happy engine.

Should you get one? Well thats more of a personal question. Do you drag eace or participate in motor cross, endurance or street races on a heavily built engine? If so, then yes, go for it. Or, is 5hp worth 200$ to you? Then yes, get one. But do you have a mostly stock engine (stock internals)? Well, then that 200$ is probably better spent elsewhere. An exhaust dump gate, better injectors, etc... In that case, then maybe wait a little on the pump.

3rdgenmaro

iTrader: (9)

Wow.

Thread is almost old enough to vote! One of the most impressive resurrections Ive ever seen.

gbeaird

iTrader: (1)

And since this has been resurrected, I'll answer the 'is it okay for a street car?' question. Definitely yes! We have a 96 Impala SS that I used to daily-drive 40 miles to work and back. The PO had turned it into his track toy, getting it to 11.09s with only bolt-ons. It came with a Meziere electrical water pump. It also has 3.73 rear gears, a 3000 RPM converter and pullies on the crank. The lights will get a bit dim when sitting at a light at night, but we've had no issues keeping the car cool on our warm southeast Texas August afternoons with the A/C going.

I did have issues with the relay when we first got the car, but after replacing that relay, the car has been dead-nuts reliable, even with almost 200,000 miles on the clock. The added bonus is that if you're racing the car, you can come back between runs, turn a switch and you have the pump and fans running with the engine turned off.

I do recommend you get a spare pump if you DD the car, since these pumps aren't readily available from many parts houses, but they're otherwise great.

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

So I can chime in here because I run a Mezeire Wp374 on a mustang 5.0. You wouldn't know It is electric because it runs a dummy pulley on the end of the motor to keep the belt inline which you would need to keep the thirdgen routing of belt. That said. I run a pwm controller on the fan and on the pump. Couple of pluses and minuses on the street. Pluses are the ability to taylor the temp where you want it sans a thermostat. Dont run the car in cold weather so heater isnt an issue for me. It is less drag on the motor but some is lost back to the charging system. Voltage system has to be up to par when running this setup. Minuses is its expensive. Pump was almost $400. Plus the PWM controller. Mezeire used to make a small block Chevy pump that had a dummy pulley on the front to keep the factory belt routing. They dont make it anymore. Basically the pwm will taylor the pump and fan to ramp up speed to meet set temp. Instead of the full off or full on of the fan . Another big plus is turning on the pump and fan when parking or at the strip between passes to cool the motor down and circulate the coolent. If they made another sbc pump I'd buy it for the Camaro. But in all honesty the HP saved isnt enough to justify the expense imo. It's like a niche item. Track cooldown is a big plus though.its not like the edelbrock on my car now never kept it cool. To each his own. I've had both and both work fine on the street.