Bike Powered Car Cooling
Discussion
I'm building a Bike powered car at the moment and have reached the cooling system stage.
Couple of questions fort anyone who has done this conversion.
Do I need an additional electric water pump? Is the original bike pump man enough to pump the water to the front mounted radiator and back. I suspect not, but I can't find a reasonably priced water pump with a 25mm pipe connector on.
Unless you know of a donor car I may find one from, in the scarp yard ?
Evans waterless Coolant is my other option.
Or I may use it with an electric pump.
I like the idea of "No Pressure" in the water system as the pipes and engine are in the car with me
Couple of questions fort anyone who has done this conversion.
Do I need an additional electric water pump? Is the original bike pump man enough to pump the water to the front mounted radiator and back. I suspect not, but I can't find a reasonably priced water pump with a 25mm pipe connector on.
Unless you know of a donor car I may find one from, in the scarp yard ?
Evans waterless Coolant is my other option.
Or I may use it with an electric pump.
I like the idea of "No Pressure" in the water system as the pipes and engine are in the car with me
Ozzie Osmond said:
In the sort of vehicle you're planning I'd have thought that would be the least of your concerns!
I'm sure cooling systems are pressurised for a reason.
The pressure is to raise the boiling point of the coolant. Waterless coolant has higher boiling point and does not expand as much so hence lower pressures are reached. The waterless stuff does have a lower heat capacity though. I'm sure cooling systems are pressurised for a reason.
Beaten to it...
Dogsbody2 said:
I'm building a Bike powered car at the moment and have reached the cooling system stage.
Couple of questions fort anyone who has done this conversion.
Do I need an additional electric water pump? Is the original bike pump man enough to pump the water to the front mounted radiator and back. I suspect not
The rad you'll fit (Polo? popular in BECS - light, compact and very effective) is rather larger than the rad the bike would have had; so the only extra work being done by the water pump is a metre or two of extra pipe. That's not adding any significant flow resistance.Couple of questions fort anyone who has done this conversion.
Do I need an additional electric water pump? Is the original bike pump man enough to pump the water to the front mounted radiator and back. I suspect not
In fact most of the time with a larger rad the main flow resistance will be the existing thermostat to keep block temperatures up (unles you are planning on tracking it, so the engine is under high load most of the time). It'll be fine with the current pump I expect.
Plan your install so you can bleed it properly though - that's the more likely source of problems.
(I've an R1 in a Fisher Fury with a VW Polo rad and it runs bang on 72-75degC year round almost regardless of use, only creeping upto 85-90 at low speed without the rad fan running (ie airflow issues in traffic). No second pump, and no overheating issues.)
I have a Light Car Company Rocket which runs the old Yamaha Fzr1000 engine with a larger bespoke radiator and fan up front but retaining the standard mechanical water pump, it all works fine until the car sits in traffic and the engine is at tick over, then the pump struggles to move the water round the system quick enough to cool it unless you rev it occasionally which im guessing is also a little self defeating, also on track days after high revs and cooling down it takes a while to cool it and can lose water via the radiator cap overflow as its a little hot. I don't use the car in the winter so I am toying with the idea of removing the thermostat to aid water flow and failing that I'm probably going to remove the mechanical pump all together and go down the electric pump route, on my car the oil is also cooled by a heat exchanger which probably doesn't help - I'm looking at Davies Craig range but they are pricey.
Best of luck and would be interested to hear how you get on.
Best of luck and would be interested to hear how you get on.
My BEC uses a Golf water pump, which should be easy enough to get ?
Although as it will be primarily be a race/track car the coolant always flows through the radiator (just less flow when the stat is closed). And a standard Caterham rad, which is about the same size as a polo.
This means that it is overcooled in this weather, so I have to blank off some of the rad. However, for a road car, you could T into the rad return before the water pump as a bypass.
Although as it will be primarily be a race/track car the coolant always flows through the radiator (just less flow when the stat is closed). And a standard Caterham rad, which is about the same size as a polo.
This means that it is overcooled in this weather, so I have to blank off some of the rad. However, for a road car, you could T into the rad return before the water pump as a bypass.
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