Finally! Some movement towards my issues...I/C Pump!

AutoXRacer said:

I installed mine in the stock ROUSH location.

My setup runs cool...its never been hot. Even after a 20 min track session or a 2 hour road trip, you can touch the tank without burning yourself. Its warm to hot, but I suspect most of the heat is transferred from the engine bay heat into the reservoir as its an aluminum tank.

I want to replace my Meziere pump not due to coolant issues, but more so I want a cleaner and quieter setup.

Plus I have found slight moistness around the bottom of the pump, but hoses and hose fittings are dry. I am thinking its coming from the lower half of the pump.

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Your first problem is that it's hard mounted. If you rubber mount it with a couple of those rubber isolator things it will be near silent. Any hard mounted pump will make a lot of noise.

Your second problem is where the pump is in the system. You want it after the HE and before the IC. It looks to me like you have it after the burp bottle and before the HE.

If the pump is weeping fix it.

Hmm...You have me thinking now about moving my pump... My concern is if I put my pump after my heat exchanger it will be rather high up and not mounted low due to the hose routing of my heat exchanger and the inlet of the E-force blower. I guess I should really try that to see since right now I have it mounted on the passenger side frame rail being fed from the stock Edelbrock reservoir. And FYI, I'm trying out the Jabsco 50840-0012 marine pump and I am running that large single pass Edelbrock heat exchanger which seems to really work well but I just don't have enough flow through the system right now but I'm thinking it is the very small openings on the E-force fill/burp tank.

I ditched the big trunk tank when I put in my new iron block to help keep the overall weight of the car where it was when I had the aluminum block. Fortunately it seems to be cooling just as good now as it was with the 5-gallon tank and Rule 2000 pump.

gmitch said:

Your first problem is that it's hard mounted. If you rubber mount it with a couple of those rubber isolator things it will be near silent. Any hard mounted pump will make a lot of noise.

Your second problem is where the pump is in the system. You want it after the HE and before the IC. It looks to me like you have it after the burp bottle and before the HE.

If the pump is weeping fix it.

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This is where/how ROUSH routed their system... out the reservoir into the pump, out the pump, into the heat exchanger. The reason for this placement is there is no where to mount it on the passenger side while maintaining the windshield washer tank (at least this is ROUSH's reasoning).

Why would routing it like you described above be better?

I believe the reasoning is you want the most water pressure going into the intercooler for optimal removal of heat from the supercharger. The more water flow and pressure through the intercooler, the more heat that will be transferred to the water.

Here is something that I wrote for the DOB GT450 manifold instructions. This will probably give you a good idea what I'm getting at.

Advanced Cooling System Setup

The GT500 style cooling system works just fine. But when Ford designs something all sorts of manufacturing items are taken into account and sometimes performance is left on the table. I probably shouldn’t have put this section in because it may just confuse you. But we have learned a LOT over the last few years about intercooler systems and what works best so I thought I would pass that knowledge on. Again, the GT500 system works JUST FINE. But if you are building a custom system, using custom parts or just want the best intercooler system you can possibly have this is what you do.

First thing first, you can’t have too much cooling, period. There is no such thing as IAT’s that are too low. And the cooler and more consistent the IAT’s are the better power your car will make.

You can’t have a heat exchanger that is too big. The largest heat exchanger you can buy as a “bolt on” is very good, but we have tested heat exchangers 4-6 times the size and we have always seen an improvement.

You can’t have too much water pump. The GT500 pumps put out about 5 gallons per minute (gpm). We have run 20gpm, 55gpm and in one case two 55gpm pumps and they always show an improvement.

Fitting and hose size is important. If possible you never want to go under 3/4”.

Fitting style is also important. You want to stay away from “street elbows” (google it) as much as possible. If you are making a 90deg bend you want it to be as gradual as possible.

Fan(s) for the heat exchanger do help. If you are using the car as a daily driver and find yourself in traffic fans will be of benefit. We have found that fans have benefit if you are going slower than 50mph. We are running fan(s) on all of our custom setups except one, and that car is almost never in traffic.

Here is a theoretical “perfect” system layout. In most cases this will be hard to replicate, but it does show what the ultimate goal is. We are starting at the intercooler because you have to start somewhere in the “loop” and the intercooler is as good a place to start as any.


System Order

The water coming OUT of the intercooler (hot) runs to the lower port of the heat exchanger. Yes, you read that right, the lower port. You will be filling the heat exchanger from the bottom and the water will exit out of the top. There are two advantages to doing it this way. One is how thermodynamics works which I don’t have time to explain. The second is that when you fill from the bottom you “drive” any air trapped in the heat exchanger out and won’t have any air pockets. It doesn’t matter which port on the intercooler you make the IN and which port you make the OUT. The water will flow the same going either direction through the intercooler.

The upper port on the heat exchanger (cold) runs to the upper fitting on overflow/degas TANK. In this “perfect” system the degas bottle should be a tank, most likely made of aluminum. The reasons for running a “tank” will be obvious in the next few steps.

The pump should be mounted to the overflow/degas tank. You can mount just about any pump to the tank, and in some cases in the tank (depending on where the tank is and its size). We have had best success when running Meziere 20gpm or 55gpm “radiator mount pumps”. These pumps mount directly to the tank and are fed water through the tanks wall. Obviously this takes a custom tank and one of the Meziere “radiator mount pumps”. You can mount just about any pump you want though. Just be sure that the pump inlet is below the water level in the tank. You want to gravity feed the pump.

The outlet of the pump runs directly, and with the shortest hose possible to the inlet of the intercooler. The intercooler represents the biggest restriction in the system and you want the highest pressure to be there. If you get caviatation or aeration in the intercooler you run the risk of flash boiling the water (we’ve seen it happen!).

This is your loop. Here is a diagram.

dysan said:

Hmm...You have me thinking now about moving my pump... My concern is if I put my pump after my heat exchanger it will be rather high up and not mounted low due to the hose routing of my heat exchanger and the inlet of the E-force blower.

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If you move your res would that help with the routing? You want the res after the HE and before the pump anyway.

AutoXRacer said:

This is where/how ROUSH routed their system...

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I see "logic" like this all the time and it drives me INSANE. Not picking on you, a lot of people do it. But that is horrible logic. The exact same logic would lead you to the conclusion that all of our cars should be stone stock because Ford designed them that way. Clearly not logic we subscribe to.

Manufacturers make all sorts of compromises when packaging and picking parts that have nothing to do with "best performance" in mind.

A perfect example of this is how all (almost) intercoolers are set up. They are set up as dual pass not because they work better that way but because it is a whole lot easier to package.

Why would routing it like you described above be better?

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Below\/\/\/

dysan said:

I believe the reasoning is you want the most water pressure going into the intercooler for optimal removal of heat from the supercharger. The more water flow and pressure through the intercooler, the more heat that will be transferred to the water.

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What he said.^^^^

gmitch said:

If you move your res would that help with the routing? You want the res after the HE and before the pump anyway.

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I would have to make a custom reservoir then..the stock Edelbrock one is molded to go against the passenger side strut tower...I wish I would have considered this before I made my shroud for my heat exchanger but I may be able to just flip it to the other side of the heat exchanger and then turn the exchanger to re-route the hoses...

The issue I will have is then I will be pushing the fluid into the bottom of the degas bottle and then out the side to the intercooler which I suspect would be a bad thing. Ugh...this crap never ends.

Difficult to see the fill/degas bottle because my coffee mug is sitting right in the line of sight, on the passenger side frame rail you can barely make out the pump I'm using and you will also see the nice big Edelbrock heat exchanger up front (with the trans cooler mounted in front of that on the bottom.

dysan said:

I would have to make a custom reservoir then..the stock Edelbrock one is molded to go against the passenger side strut tower...I wish I would have considered this before I made my shroud for my heat exchanger but I may be able to just flip it to the other side of the heat exchanger and then turn the exchanger to re-route the hoses...

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You are a great candidate for one of our battery location pump/tank combo's. The problem is they are a PITA to get into production and won't be a big seller so they keep getting bumped to the bottom of the list. You could pop one of those in there, run the lines, wire in the pump and be done.

If I were you I would look at making/mounting a tank in front of the fuse block. Then mount a pump just below it, then run it to the IC.

The issue I will have is then I will be pushing the fluid into the bottom of the degas bottle and then out the side to the intercooler which I suspect would be a bad thing. Ugh...this crap never ends.

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Yeah, you don't want to do this.

Difficult to see the fill/degas bottle because my coffee mug is sitting right in the line of sight, on the passenger side frame rail you can barely make out the pump I'm using and you will also see the nice big Edelbrock heat exchanger up front (with the trans cooler mounted in front of that on the bottom.

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I do like that HE.

Damn thats a huge heat exchanger!!!

Thanks gmitch!!
I'm not sure I can get that setup to work in my overly crowded engine bay.
Possibly if I replace the Meziere with the smaller 2013 GT500 pump, then I can place it pretty much anywhere in any position. The Meziere specifically says it has to be upright as in my picture above.

So the reason to place the pump down stream of the reservoir is to have minimum hose routing to the intercooler with highest head pressure?

With the ROUSH setup, the inlet and outlet for the intercooler are behind the motor by the firewall. So no matter what I do, there will be long plumbing to and from the intercooler. I hope its OK to use your drawing to illustrate:

gmitch said:

You are a great candidate for one of our battery location pump/tank combo's. The problem is they are a PITA to get into production and won't be a big seller so they keep getting bumped to the bottom of the list. You could pop one of those in there, run the lines, wire in the pump and be done.

If I were you I would look at making/mounting a tank in front of the fuse block. Then mount a pump just below it, then run it to the IC.

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Your idea of mounting a tank with integrated pump in the OEM battery location is genious!!!
This would greatly reduce the plumbing (in general) needed out of the pump.

AutoXRacer said:

Damn thats a huge heat exchanger!!!

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You should see mine!

I'm not sure I can get that setup to work in my overly crowded engine bay.
Possibly if I replace the Meziere with the smaller 2013 GT500 pump

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That GT500 pump will not be any easier to mount. Maybe even harder when you consider that the hoses come out of it at odd angles.

So the reason to place the pump down stream of the reservoir is to have minimum hose routing to the intercooler with highest head pressure?

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The hose length doesn't mater so much. But yes, you do want the pump the last thing before the IC.

With the ROUSH setup, the inlet and outlet for the intercooler are behind the motor by the firewall. So no matter what I do, there will be long plumbing to and from the intercooler. I hope its OK to use your drawing to illustrate:

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The problem with this is you have to have the pump after the res. Not before it.

Your idea of mounting a tank with integrated pump in the OEM battery location is genious!!!
This would greatly reduce the plumbing (in general) needed out of the pump.

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It is a fantastic setup, we have 6 cars up here set up like that. The problem is that it is not cheap at all, not cheap to make, kind of a PITA (lots of welding), etc. The "wall" that the pump goes on is billet and the rest of the tank is sheet, then it is all welded together. I would like to get a group buy going at some point and get some out there, but I think a lot of people are going to choke on the price no matter how good they work. I'm guessing they will be $400-450.

Here is the first one we did:

AutoXRacer said:

I'm not sure I can get that setup to work in my overly crowded engine bay.

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This pic is from a long time ago when I was running my KB and the 20gpm Meziere. This is how I had it packaged. I didn't do it quite right though. The pump goes directly to the IC, then the IC goes to the res. I should have gone HE to res to pump to IC. That is just different line routing though.

I can't put a tank there because my power distribution is on the back side of the strut tower. I'm glad this was brought up so I can re-think my setup. I was routed correctly when I had the big tank in the trunk but didn't even think about it when I changed back to the small reservoir.

AutoXRacer said:

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Now that I look at this you have the in/out backward on the HE too.

gmitch said:

Now that I look at this you have the in/out backward on the HE too.

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What do you mean?

Well, in my particular setup, the lower port is the OUT and the upper port is the IN. Regarding the picture, I was more concerned with general setup of the pump location. But you are right, in my car, the lower port is the OUT to the intercooler.

As you can see below, the AFCO HX is routed to to basically force you to make the upper port IN and the lower port OUT.



In order to make the upper port OUT, it would require a 180* fitting/hose to route it back to the passenger side.

Now I really like that setup with the tank and pump in the battery location, just because its positioned right next to the intercooler ports.

One question, seeing your old setup, seems like placing the pump so close to the exhaust header/manifolds, wouldn't that kill the pump sooner?

So...
What are the chances of getting a setup like yours? lol
And how about sharing your heat exchanger setup!!??

I was running the Afco unit when I had my trunk tank and it wasn't difficult to use the lower as the in. I don't know where the in and out connections are on the roush blower but can't you run the line out of the tank to the bottom port on the Afco, then run a hose from the top port across the top of the Afco to the pump if you mount it on the driver's side, then come out of the pump and run a hose up to your intercooler on the blower and then out of the blower and back in the water tank?

dysan said:

I was running the Afco unit when I had my trunk tank and it wasn't difficult to use the lower as the in. I don't know where the in and out connections are on the roush blower but can't you run the line out of the tank to the bottom port on the Afco, then run a hose from the top port across the top of the Afco to the pump if you mount it on the driver's side, then come out of the pump and run a hose up to your intercooler on the blower and then out of the blower and back in the water tank?

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The ports to the intercooler on the ROUSH kit is by the firewall/behind the intake manifold. The ports are angled towards the passenger side.

Your routing above is possible, but your are double lengthening the hose routing.

AutoXRacer said:

What do you mean?

Well, in my particular setup, the lower port is the OUT and the upper port is the IN.

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For best performance you want to switch those.

As you can see below, the AFCO HX is routed to basically force you to make the upper port IN and the lower port OUT.

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I refuse to let my car "force" me to do anything.

In order to make the upper port OUT, it would require a 180* fitting/hose to route it back to the passenger side.

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And there ya go.

One question, seeing your old setup, seems like placing the pump so close to the exhaust header/manifolds, wouldn't that kill the pump sooner?

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It could, but I put about 5K miles on it and the guy I sold it to has 25K on his. Still going strong.

So...What are the chances of getting a setup like yours? lol

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Really good. All I will need is your car and about $10,000 and I could get you all set up.

And how about sharing your heat exchanger setup!!??

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My custom front heat exchanger has:

1080 cu in of core volume
360 sq in of face
1x 16" fan

It is all fenced in and seals to the grill openings for zero spillage



My custom rear mounted HE has:

438 cu in of core volume
292 sq in of face
2x 10" fans

Trunk is completely sealed and pressurized.




I'm running two Meziere 55gpm pumps in series. One at the front of the car, one at the back.

Total heat exchanger numbers are:

1518 cu in of core volume
652 sq in of face

For reference, the Afco Pro Series you are running is has:

374 cu in of core volume
298 sq of face
2x 10" fans

Oh snap!!! Yeah, not looking for that kind of setup... LOL
Thats just crazy talk right there!!!! OMG!!!

I was just asking about the battery located tank and integrated pump. lol
Maybe (maybe) ask how much your front heat exchanger setup would cost... lol

Thanks for the education on the coolant routing!!!

AutoXRacer said:

Oh snap!!! Yeah, not looking for that kind of setup... LOL
Thats just crazy talk right there!!!! OMG!!!

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Yeah, my setup is way over the top! Tons of custom work going on. There are weeks of man hours into that setup. I would guess at least 90-100hrs. Plus the cost of all the materials and parts, coolers, pumps, lines, etc.

I was just asking about the battery located tank and integrated pump. lol

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I don't have good hard numbers yet. I'm guessing the tank, with all the rubber mounting stuff, etc will be about $400. That is a guess though, I will have to get pricing from the machine shop, the sheet metal guy and the welder to be sure though. I would really like to do them, but they would have to be a group buy. All my cash is in other projects that will make me far more money right now. And I need to make some money!!!

Maybe (maybe) ask how much your front heat exchanger setup would cost... lol

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The HE itself is not that expensive. But all that sheet metal work is. Plus you can't run a A/C condenser with that setup, the HE is a little over 3" thick. The whole front of the car has been modded to get it in there.

Thanks for the education on the coolant routing!!!

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No problem, we have spent a lot of time testing this stuff and figuring out what works. May as well save others the time of making the mistakes we did during the learning process.