| RE:Best way to flush coolant system? |
Subject: RE:Best way to flush coolant system? by Strick on 2008/1/10 18:44:30 Let's talk about pros and cons of electric coolant pumps. First of all, most Corvette owners are going to side with what they have or are stuck with. Not all of us have the ability or knowledge to make this upgrade. Once it's done, just about anybody can remove and replace an electric pump. The manufacturer, Meziere, says these pumps are good for 2500 hours. So, if you average 50 mph that gives you 125,000 miles on an electric pump. I have 20K on mine so far and no problems. Leaks, The LT1/4 has a problem with the OEM water pump leaking through the weep hole do to a design flaw in the rear bearing seal of the water pump, it just wears out quickly. When the LT1 came out it had a vibration problem which GM had to fix by putting weights in the fly wheel. Not all LT1s were created equal and some just had more vibration than others. This is one cause of the rear bearing and seal to wear sooner that designed. Take a look at the drive gear for the OEM pump. .  Look at all the places where vibration can develope. Not a problem with the electric pump. Cons, the OEM pump fails slowly and you can get home if you notice the leak. But most of us find out when the opti spark begins to fail, from the leak from the water pump, The only real maintenance you can do for your OEM pump is just scheduled coolant flushes. Additives are not suggested by GM. When the electric pump fails, you are out of a cooling system and I hope your cell phone is working. Do you have any advanced notice? I don't know as mine hasn't failed, yet. I would think it would fail like any other electric motor, gets noisey and not as efficent. We'll see. Is it better to have constant flow or increased flow at higher RPMs? Most of us don't drive our Vettes at high rpms, we usually keep it around 2000rpms or so, unless you have a track whore. We need the best cooling at high temps and the A/C running. This is where the electric pump, at constant flow, out shines the manual oem pump. And BTW, our fans are electric. They don't seem to fail on a regular basis. I can't say as fact that the electric pump will give you a small gain in horsepower, but it does make sence that the electric motor is more efficent than the manual set up. How about some extras you do get with an electric pump. After a hard run where the coolant temp is in a higher range, you can cool the engine down by running the pump with the engine off. In stop and go traffic, your temps will be lower due to the constant flow of the electric pump. Couple that with either lower temps for the fans to come on or manual control of the fans and you'll never have problems in a traffic jam. I'm starting to ramble so I'll quit for a while. Yes, I'm a believer in the electri coolant pump as an upgrade over the OEM pump. The OEM pump is fine for the average C4. It took a while for me to see the advantages of the upgrade before I did it |
