Thread: SBC Electric waterpump..

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I was thinking about getting an electric waterpump setup to go along with my new engine. is it true all electric waterpumps usually provide better flow and increased cooling? how much hp will getting ridd of my old mech. waterpump and clutch fan setup give me? are electric waterpumps usually reliable? i mean i dont want to keep changing the damn thing every 10,000 miles. im also curious to see how these things are wired up, i assume theres a relay that sits next to the radiator or something? im also trying to find a good/cheap dual electric fan setup that will take care of 385hp, no relay larger than 170 temp.. thanks for the help everyone.

ive heard this setup will offer me better cooling, along with the few extra hp it frees from the motor. whats wrong with running am electric waterpump/fan setup?? other than it may being 'somewhat' of a hassle to install, but hardly.

Sagacious is this street or strip car? I have never used electric water pump but was told by someone that has been working on cars for years that electric will not cool on normal street use, its for strip where it is used for short periods of time, The setup that tech told you is probably the best setup to use on a street car and possibly a strip car also as it will keep the engine the coolest it car. That is close to the setup I used on my 74 camaro and never had an issue even running in 100*+ temps in the desert.

thanks for the input.. i know, i have no issue with cooling either, i've had my 250,000k mile 350 still get 175 degrees and no higher with a mechanical setup and aluminum radiator, i basically just wanted a setup that wouldnt drag the motor and free some hp. thats my only intent on finding out how reliable and efficient an electric pump is. i've seen a claim by weiland i think, or mezierre, they mentioned "suitable for street use, average life expectacy of 2500hrs. thats around 104 days of constant driving, and assuming you drove a quarter of a day each day total.. or 6 hours (which is how much i drive), you'd end up with roughly 417 days of use. this puts me about a month over a years worth of use. mechanical pumps usually last a lot longer but looking at the facts you'd have to decided what you're willing to compromise... would you pay $130 (cheapest) approx. every year for an electric pump? maybe not, but i still have yet to find the best pump.

I have a CSR electric pump, and dual electric fans on my car. The car does not see any street driving though. As far as freeing up some H.P., maybe it did, but they only claim it frees up about 5 to 10 h.p. and in my opinion, hardly worth it for a street car. Most of the companies claim that on the average, they move around 35 gallons per minute. When the time comes, and I put my car back on the street to have some fun with the locals, the electric pump will be removed in favor of a mechanical pump, but the fans will stay. Think about what happens when an electric water pump decides to expire. It stops pumping, or causes an electrical fire. When a mechanical pump expires, all it does, most of the time, is leak, still giving you time to get to a place to make repairs.

One of the main reasons that drag racers go to an electric pump and fan is for cool down between rounds. You can keep the coolant flowing through the motor and the fan blowing with the engine off while you prepare for the next round. This is very important with large fields where you may go 10 rounds if you keep winning. In the later rounds there is no time to go back to your pit, you cross the finish line, get your timeslip and if it has on it you head right back to the staging lanes.

In the "old" days we built a bracket that would hold a heater blower motor and ran a belt over to a cogged pully on the waterpump. Then we had an light weight flex fan mounted on that. Tbe blower motor would spin the water pump and the fan, circulating coolant and pulling air through the radiator. Moroso recognized a good thing and started building kits to do the same thing.

When I converted my bracket car from motor driven fan and pump to electric I may have seen a slight performance improvement, but the real benefit was between round cool down. The other thing it allowed was getting the engine to consistant temperature for every round. If the motor was too cool you could leave the pump off while it warmed up. It was all about running consistant.

Pat