reverse cooling?

[80broncoman]

Anyone ever thought about reverse cooling on our six's? seems to work for the factory cars. I know it could be done, as kits were available for the brand
C small block years ago. would a different configured head gasket be required?

EDIT: Sorry I thought I was putting this in the hardcore forum

 

[SuperMag]

Ummmm... I'm trying to figure out why you'd want to do this... what would be the advantage?

 

[StrangeRanger]

Cooling the head first allows higher compression ratios and transfers less heat to the block. Never heard of it being done on a street engine, don't know the downside.

 

[SuperMag]

I see. In that case...

As far as the 300 is concerned, it doesn't seem that it would be that tough to do. In 1987 the spin of the water pump was reversed to accomodate the serpentine belt set-up. IF... the impellers were directional (this needs to be confirmed*), it would simply be a case of putting a post-86 water pump on a pre-87 motor, and vice versa.

The fan clutch threads would be spinning backwards (they changed direction in '87 as well), so you'd have to do something like shear-pin the shaft and clutch nut, and the thermostat would have to be moved to the "lower" position. Not a big deal; you can use an inline thermostat like they used on the old 8N tractors...



*Like I say, this needs to be confirmed. I don't recall very clearly (it's been a while since I had a water pump off), but I think the possibility exists that the impeller blades were simply radial, in which case reversing the spin of the impeller does nothing for you. Worth checking into...

 

[80broncoman]

SR said exactly what i was thinking.
All brand C LT1's are this way and they have 10to1 comp and only use a two valve head. All quad 4's have this, all 4.6, 5.4 and many, many more.
I think it allows a engine with alum head to keep expansion issues at a min
be cause it keeps the head cooler and block warmer rather than the oppisite.
i think on a all iron engine it will make life for things like a head gaskets simpler. Smokey sold a kit years ago it had different head gaskets and such.
He always said that was the first thing the factory should fix on them, guess they finnally did in 1990.

 

[Anonymous]

Hmmmmm! If its easy enough to do it might be a worthwile project....this is a good topic...hope someone has the right answers to this...

 

[Anonymous]

you also have to remember that Aluminum headed engine can run an extra 1.0 compression over Iron heads, regardless of the cooling.
9.0:1 is about it for steel heads and "cheap gas" 87octane
10.0:1 is what aluminum heads will do on 87octane

of course there are other factors but thats a rough estimate. I wish ford would have put an aluminum head on the later 300-6's

 

[Anonymous]

Water pumps do have a definate direction they should spin, but changing the direction of spin will not change the direction of flow, it will simply decrease the efficiency. They are centrifical pumps, just like turbos, and they only flow one way.

 

[SuperMag]

Makes sense. Now that I think about it, my original proposition does seem a bit ill conceived...

 

[CobraSix]

But, if you were to reverse the pitch of the impeller, you can reverse the flow of the pump with the same direction of rotation.

Slade

 

[StrangeRanger]

Nope. Centrifugals have a suction port and a discharge port which are determined by the shape of the body casting. If you spin the impeller backwards, the pump will still draw and discharge from the same ports only at much lower flows and/or pressures or possibly pump nothing at all and destroy itself through cavitation.

You'd need to design a different pump housing to reverse the flow. If you think about how it mounts to the block, this is easily done on an SBC, more difficult on other engines

 

[addo]

What about a gutted pump body with an externally mounted unit?

 

[CobraSix]

I didn't say spin it backwards, I said reverse the pitch. You'd have to re pipe the pump and use a V-8 style radiator to avoid serious radiator hoses, but it would be too difficult at all.

Slade

 

[CobraSix]

Since I can't edit...I meant, it would NOT be too difficult.

Slade

 

[Anonymous]

For $360.00 u can get an electric pump that has a built in expansion tank that serves as a fill point and air seperator..so with this thing all u will have to do is plump lines into your head, block off the existing water pump area and possibly get a few braided radiator hoses cause the preshaped probably wont work. i believe it will work, but its too pricey to think about and i dont know if it would be worth the money

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetai ... 0%20306264

 

[Anonymous]

Fellas-
Simply spinning the pump backwards doesn't make it 'reverse' cooling; for that, you've got to route the water through the head first, then to the block. Most pumps won't do squat while trying to suck through the discharge side. Don't forget thermostat orientation...

I've seen a couple guys do it with a Davies Electric water pump (remote, with it's own thermostat-cool piece).

Aslo- some pumps have the blades at right angles, and can be driven either way. Some SBC pumps fall into this catagory- mainly those with stamped impellers. You're better off running a shaped impeller that works with the housing.

 

[Thad]

Centrif pumps suck in the center and discharge outward to the outlet port due to centrifugal fore.

Take the bucket of water swing it around like you did in your first science class, clockwise centrif force is outward, counter-clockwise centrif force is outward. DUH!

The racing SBC had a hot spot problem at very high continous output.
Heat loss at the combustion chamber could allow a higher CR, BUT the down side is the decrease in thermal expansion that is driving the piston down.

If the materails and tech was available the most efficient IC engine would be one with zero heat loss. Smoky Yunich did extensive work along these lines.

 

[Anonymous]

but the idea i had above with the one pump works right? it has a chmber that can get rid of the gases/air bubbles, and all u gotta do is plumb it right, throught the head n such like i stated earlier?

 

[Thad]

Here another tidbit that Henry discovered in his first flatheads after burning up a few prototypes. If the water is sucked from the block there a pressure drop lowering the boiling point causing overheating.
If you pump water into the engine there is a pressure rise and the boiling point is increase. The reason for todays pressurised radiators.
In a non pressurised system best design is suck from the radiator, pump to the engine, that way the pressure drop is in the radiator id heat exchange.

 

[Anonymous]

Thad, when Smokey had his column in Popular Science, that magazine had an article on his high-efficiency engine experiments. Have you seen anything summarizing Smokey's engine since he died? I'd like to know how the project was going.