ALFAGTV6.COM

[Zamani]

OK just waiting for Mats to say "why the hell do you need it?!"





Anyway, saw some dyno plots and was pretty impressed. 10 wheel bhp increase on a Honda Civic EG with a B16A? That's impressive.

Any thoughts? For the V6 that would mean I would have on less consumable. If I had a Honda VTEC race car I probably wouldn't even have to think about the water pump. But since this is an Alfa V6 with its notorious 30K mile waterpump maybe this is a good excuse to swap over to an electrical one. ::D

[Mats]

This is already on my to-do list so now you know what I think about it.

[Reale]

That being said, has anyone played with the existing water pump? Modified the impeller? If we are regularly spinning the pump higher than its optimal speed, can we do anything to it to change this? I know that the size of the pulley is about as big as we can make it. Has anyone explored making the crank pulley underdrive? Might be too complicated?
-Allen

[Zamani]

Al,

I have no clue about the waterpump speed. And I doubt many V6 races also do know about this. If you go with the 164L waterpump, I think you can take the pulley off and machine a new one, probably an underdrive one. The RWD waterpumps's pulley look like it is not the type which can be easily taken off. Never tried though, so who knows....

With the electric waterpump, you can vary the speed (I think you will be supplied with a PWM controller). I guess you can set the pump speed based on the temp instead of engine speed.

Read a review of the Craig Davies waterpump on a Mustang and they said the car ran cooler and throttle response was a significantly better.

[Daniel]

I have seen EWP run on two V6 cars now. One was a 3.0 rally car which was very successful, the other was a 3.0 conversion in a road car but I never actually found out how that one went.
I'll be going that way if the 24v pump craps out.

[MD]

I think in priciple EWP is a good idea. If ever installed one, I would want to be sure there is an ignition shut down immediately the pump fails for what ever reason eg, a blown fuse, seized (corroded) bearing or whatever. At the least, you would want a serious warning light to come on to tell you the the water pump is cactus.
That's Aussie for it's had the Richard, the royal order of the sausage, had the gong, history, gone west.

[Mats]

Big f***ing warning light yes, shutdown, nooooooo...
Think maxed out at 180Km/h at 1.1 lateral G, do you really want to lift off there?
Same goes for oil pressure BTW.

[Reale]

Yes, trailing throttle oversteer is no fun!
So, since my rules forbid the electric waterpump . . .
I see stuff for other motors about impellers designed to decrease cavitation, etc. Seems to me like a place to improve things. Anybody ever taken one of these pumps apart? Guess I will this weekend!
-Allen

[iachella]

Can someone post a link to EWP suppliers? This thread is very interesting, but I don't know where the pumps come from. Thanks.

[Mats]

http://www.daviescraig.com.au/main/display.asp

[Micke]

Does anyone have experience in these things?

I read somewhre on the web years ago that they are better suited for drag strips than racing.

I like the idea to use one and dump the generator as well. Our races are about 1/2 hour so I could do with a biggish battery in the trunk. This would save weight, move it rearwards and increase output of the engine.

It's about €400 and the money could be better spent elsewhere. And I might end up needing the generator after all.

[MD]

Micke

The electric water pump aside, I don't think there is too much merrit in getting rid of the alternator.

Let's do the sums. A small 12v alternator putting out a maximum of 55 amps would produce 12x55=660 watts x 0.00134= 0.8844 horsepower. So the saving is negligible. If we are relying on winning a race on the basis of less than 1 horsepower, it would be more usefull to to shed some weight in the kazzie first.

For a racing vehicle not running anything but the essentials, the charge rate would be nothing like that so the horsepower saving would be even less.

You would be better off keeping it to improve electrical reliability and maximum voltage.

[Mats]

Lets read that again, maximum 55 amps, so if you switch of the rear window heater, seat heaters and quit winding the electric windows up and down all the time you wont use a fraction of that. And for gods sake turn off that stereo!

You can probably do without the regulating circuit too and use some kind of flow limiting part instead, like a plate with a hole in the thermo housing. That way you can get it cheaper.

[MD]

I like the idea to use one and dump the generator as well. Our races are about 1/2 hour so I could do with a biggish battery in the trunk. This would save weight, move it rearwards and increase output of the engine.

Hey Mats that Spring heat must be getting to you man. The context is for a "racing" type environment and not for road application-would have thought that was obvious.

[Mats]

Pull the head out of your arse and smell the irony...

I was adding stuff to support your theory of zero gain, you forgot to calculate with internal losses in the alternator though but I figure a maximum usage of about 20amps, a little bit with carbs (no high pressure pumps or injectors.
But if we talk weight transfer there might be some gain in removing ~2Kg from the front and adding a slightly larger battery at the rear. Using an external battery for the starter you can get rid of some more weight, might be problematic if you stall the engine during an agricultural run though.