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Posted by: bondo Apr 24 2006, 02:26 PM

As some of you know, the LT1 has reverse cooling, and uses a special cam driven water pump on the front of the engine. This water pump is basically "the problem" with using an LT1 in a 914.

My solution is to put an electric conversion on the pump, and move the whole unit to the front trunk by the radiator. This also has the benefit of shortening the route between the thermostat and radiator to reduce the chances of out of control cycling. (the thermostat is integrated into the water pump, along with a bypass, so coolant always flows through the engine, it just bypasses the radiator when cool.

Here are the before pics:

Posted by: bondo Apr 24 2006, 02:28 PM

And here are the after pics:

Posted by: bondo Apr 24 2006, 02:29 PM

Doh, can somebody move this to the garage? Thanks!

Posted by: Aaron Cox Apr 24 2006, 03:29 PM

to da garage we go!

Posted by: bondo Apr 24 2006, 03:31 PM

Thanks man.. Now maybe Britt will forgive you!

Posted by: byndbad914 Apr 24 2006, 04:08 PM

bondo - just a heads up - sometimes those CSI 30gpm water pumps can't flow enough water to keep the engine cool. A mild LT1 probably won't be a problem, but I know a lot of the serious "street" cars that were running higher compression and HP combos of various flavors had trouble sometimes.

FYI, I used this pump - the Meziere WP337 (as well as Tim at Ron Davis radiators, who has a V8 car with a/c and such in PHOENIX and doesn't have any cooling issues). Just putting this here for you in case you need to make an upgrade in the future - it is good to know of a pump that is proven to work well. Also meant to be remote mounted so easy to make a mounting plate and put it wherever you like - well that 2nd feature sounds like this girl I used to know

http://www.meziere.com/index.php?pgName=Remote

Posted by: bondo Apr 24 2006, 06:30 PM

Were the ones that you know of with problems on LT1s? The LT1 version uses the stock pump (as shown in my pics) but spins an impeller from the opposite side than stock. It should work just as well as the stock pump assuming the same RPM. The impeller design actually looks better than the stock stamped steel impeller. The regular SBC electric water pumps use a custom designed housing that seems much more likely to have problems.

Also, this is the second version of this pump. The first one (when they were called "CSI") only had 3 straight vanes on the impeller. This one (now they're CSR) has 6 vanes and they're curved. I don't think I would have bought it if it was still the 3 vane version.

The remote mount one you show will not do what I need, if I used it I would have no provision for a thermostat. I could then add a remote thermostat, but I really want to keep the bypass type thermostat of the stock setup, and I know of no other way. If this one gives me problems, I'll just put a meziere electric conversion on this pump and give that a try. From what I read, the CSR and meziere LT1 pump conversions pumped at very similar rates, but the CSR did it with less watts, it cost less, and was rated for more hours. We'll see if it actually measures up.