As the very question I asked - what do these pumps produce?

200 gallon per min is a hell of a lot of water (220 gallon is a ton or 1 cubic metre) and those little pumps with crude imepller & volute design will not flow that volume even at balanced head.

Just wanted to find out facts before I install my engine.
Have existing stock pump and Cobra pump, I think the Cobra pump out performs the stock unit anyway?

Cheers guys.

 

I know Rich but after painting the end I thought it looked cosmetically better with the rubber sleeve covering the threads. I was kinda curious how long the rubber sleeve would hold up. So far so good.

 

put a black Zip tie around it.. it will stay..

 

HI!... Well I'm sorry, but I drive mine everyday and the electric W/P does better than my mechanical pump ever did. Temps went down about 10-15 degree's and when on the dyno or the dragstrip I can keep it running with the engine off to help cool the engine faster in conjunction with my 2 16" electric fans. I'll stik with what I got, thankyou.

 

Amen to that.

Drive mine daily with electric, in the SoCal summer heat, stop and go traffic, temps always cool. Won't go back to a mechanical pump, ever. Don't have to rev the engine to circulate more water to cool down. Pump has been totally reliable a proven horsepower adder for me. Just my $.02

 

I have heeded Rich's advice thus far and kept the stock '03 pump on my truck even though i have a brand new "Cobra" pump on my shelf. I know the overall temps may be OK with the smaller pump, but worry about hot spots around the combustion chambers. This would afford a likeliness for detonation.
I have a question that I hope Rich will respond to. The electric pump is a power saver, and ok for light performance type use, but low flow may not sweep the air bubbles off the walls. How about in conjunction with the Evans waterless coolant?
Jim

 

Sal......I guess you and I are in the Light performance use.............So, how much more over 750 do I need to be, to be considered High Performance????

 

why did ford give us the same heads as the N/A 5.4L?
Why did Ford give us the same Exhaust manifold as the N/A 5.4L?

You'd think if they really wanted this to be a performance vehicle they'd make this damn air pump more efficient instead of reaching into the parts bin of the regular 5.4L engines.

 

I think the cobra pump is fine IF you can run a pair of bypass lines or air bleed lines from the back of both cyl heads.Just because if flows more does not make it better and a HI PERF. mod since it now requires MORE hp to turn it.Why not stay with the stock pump and do the air bleed mod or use the cobra pump and do it.It does work coolant passages are already there and can easily be tapped and an adapter made for the T-Housing to run them to,since air is a bad thing to have in a cooling syatem.Stan

 

Forgot to add that I think it has the velocity to sweep it[air] off of the cyl wall it just does not have the velocity to hold it in suspension and will pocket in the cyl heads.which is VERy bad since that is were the majority of the head is generated.sTan

 

Are you sure you don't mean gallons per hour?

212 per minute equals over 3.5 gallons per second. That's more than a top fuel dragster uses in fuel, and they require a couple of hundred pounds of pressure to do it.

 

I think I know what you are talking about. Connecting the rear of the heads together by means of a tube, to allow coolant to flow but won't that simply equalize the pressure in both heads? I don't think that will improve flow between the heads. There is nothing forcing the coolant to take that path. The only benefit I can see is equalizing the pressure between the heads.

Now if you were to install a small pump back there, Lets say like a washer fluid squiter pump (Or a I/C pump) to force the coolant to flow between the heads, I think you'd be on to something.

 

Well sort of.But then you run the lines or line up to the T-stat housing By doing that any air that 'fell' out of suspension,would go up and since the motor cools by front of block,to back of block,up to rear of heads then forward to t-stat.When the air and coolant made the 'turn' to go forward in the heads the air would keep going up and into the 'bleeds' that went to the t-stat housing.and out.Stan

 

ahhh

 

The pass cars (stangs) and truck pumps spin 30% faster than the crank.

lol.. I fully understand! We had to make the test stands supply lines a larger diameter when testing the 4.6L back in the early 90s.

The 7 bladed truck pump & "cobra impeller" are actually one in the same. The cobra impeller is simply a cut down version. It measures 84mm OD vs the trucks 102mm OD. It definately uses less torque.. and cavitation is non existant in a truck block. However there is a trade off. You will get less velocity & pressure through the cavities feeding both sides of the motor because of two reasons. 1) There is no overlap in the blade to blade channel of the impeller. Basicly it's not much different than a paddle wheel. 2) If you could measure the distance between the impellers OD (blade tip) and the two strippers in the block you'd see about a 11mm gap. That gap means there is a interal leak/bleed/bypass as the impeller is trying to sling off the water.

The reason a cobra pump "works" in a lightning is because of the large radiator and fairly new/unobstructed trucks. Maybe I'm just being too much of a stickler on the subject? I just know that efficiency and longevity are greatly compromised. Maybe the average Lightning guy just does'nt push it hard enough to back up my claims?

The real problem with the 99 cobra pump came to light in the 99 cobra it'self. 2-3 laps at a road coarse and they were over heating. Root cause was not the pump... it was the restricted inlet of the block. But... there is no way they were going to change engine block tooling or redo the PV testing. (production validation)





I guess it just comes down to how you use the truck and under what conditions. I had to design it for 5000lb towing in hot weather, extended idling, power consumption, and cavitation issues.

If the e-pump works (and it does) then use it. Just know that your over cooling the motor and consuming more energy than is required.



Very true. Actually the bottleneck is the inlet passage as I stated earlier. However you feed the "little impeller" with a unobstructed 4" pipe and it will exceed 200gpm. I've personally conducted the tests to prove to papa ford it *was'nt* our pumps causing thier overheating problems.

Neal, it sounds like your goals are exactly what the e-pump was intended for! Sounds like you are perfectly happy with it and it works for your usage and climate.

As I understand thier products.. they chemically alter the surface tension of the coolant. Therefor it's less likely to airate. I would suspect it to have great effectiveness in old motors w/o degas bottles. Our does have one and we specifically tuned the pump & passages to remove the airation.
The e-pump appearantly "works" for the typical hot rodded Lightning. If your going to see towing, extended idles, hot weather, and don't expect to get 150k out of the motor? Then go with it. Just know it's overcooling and consuming more energy than a mechanical pump at lower rpms. At max rpms it certianly will require less tq. But 99% of the time we are not at 5000+ rpms and in those times it'll be an excessive power consuming item.


This very well may be. I have not tested it like that and simply don't know.

You got that backwards. It uses less tq and flows less. Far less in flow and slightly less in tq consumption.

Yes I'm sure! We had to step up to 4" pipe with the proper head pressure just to feed it at 7500rpms. Keep in mind this flow rate was not in an engine... it was on a perfect worlds test stand. Point being it's not the impeller that is the bottle neck within a modular motor. 4.6 or the 5.4s


Regards, Rich