Cooling question

[TBone]

Edit: KA24DE in an S13 chassis

On our race car, we have stripped all unnecessary items like the heater hoses and all the other coolant hoses other than the upper and lower radiator hoses. The fitting on the back of the block where the heater hose used to go is where we mounted our aftermarket temp gauge sending unit.

Question: Is there anything to gain by replumbing that heater hose fitting and routing the water back to the radiator somehow? Does the rear of the block have any circulation or hot-spot problems that this might solve?

A similar thing is often done to some V8 engines, but I don't know enough about the 4-cylinders to know if it's worthwhile.

Thanks.

[Matt93SE]

I was poking around looking at the KA-DE cooling system in the FSM yesterday.. are your heater hoses blocked, or just looped?

The way the circuit runs, the water goes out the back of the block, through the heater core, then back into the thermostat housing.

If you just looped the hoses (like I did), then all you're doing is circulating hot water right back into the block. You would be better off capping it or returning it to the radiator like you've suggested.

That's soemthing I need to fix this winter as well.

then again, I haven't had any cooling issues. Ran a 30 min race in 110F heat with stock radiator and no ducting, and the water temps stabilized at 205F.

[TBone]

I was poking around looking at the KA-DE cooling system in the FSM yesterday.. are your heater hoses blocked, or just looped?

The way the circuit runs, the water goes out the back of the block, through the heater core, then back into the thermostat housing.

If you just looped the hoses (like I did), then all you're doing is circulating hot water right back into the block. You would be better off capping it or returning it to the radiator like you've suggested.

That's soemthing I need to fix this winter as well.

then again, I haven't had any cooling issues. Ran a 30 min race in 110F heat with stock radiator and no ducting, and the water temps stabilized at 205F.

Completely gone; connections are capped. Here's what I have; the gray/black plugs are where everything is blocked off. The red is what I'm thinking of doing. Do you think there would be any gain from this; better circulation, better distribution, etc?



We have nothing but cooling issues. In 101* heat, with stock radiator, we stabilized at 235F. With Mishimoto aluminum radiator, about 200-210. I've ducted the radiator for the race next weekend; we'll see if it gets any better. With cooler weather, it should be better.

Also, we've been using 2 engines. The one that's in there now runs about 20* cooler than the one that blew up. When we get the rebuilt one in, we'll be adding an oil temp gauge to track that. We also modified the pan to hold almost an extra quart of oil. We'll see how that works for us.

[240sxTTC]

I have mine going from the back of the block to your plug just under the word "Thermostat" so it takes the normal route like when the heater core was hooked up. I also have the existing loop ("J" hook) from the intake manifold to the block. My engine makes more pwr than yours and I rev it to 7500rpm. When it's 95F and 100% humidity is stabilizes at ~190-195F.

I don't have any coolant hooked up to the TB.

[TBone]

I have mine going from the back of the block to your plug just under the word "Thermostat" so it takes the normal route like when the heater core was hooked up. I also have the existing loop ("J" hook) from the intake manifold to the block. My engine makes more pwr than yours and I rev it to 7500rpm. When it's 95F and 100% humidity is stabilizes at ~190-195F.

I don't have any coolant hooked up to the TB.

Thanks for the input. On the one I'm rebuilding right now, I'll plumb it up this way, and see if I get better results.