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Date:         Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:24:01 -0500
Reply-To:     Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject:      Re: Electric Water Pump (was: Re: Electric Vanagon? Now really
              useful tips..)
Comments: To: Wesley Pegden <wes@cs.uchicago.edu>
In-Reply-To:  <47B8F37D.607@cs.uchicago.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Electric water pumps have lot's of benefits now, however there is also something to be said for keeping things simple.

The electric pump will save gas, increase power available to the wheels, allow for pre/post cooling system function when the engine is off(not that useful with vans, but great for drag cars on track night in the lanes) coupled with a block heater in cold starts you could arrive at your van with the entire content of the cooling system above ambient and really cut into your warm-up time and it would save on engine wear on start...

Anyhow the down side is if the pump fails, you're all done... but armed with a simple flow gauge or system monitor the risk is controlled... it's also expensive, and hard to find a pump to run compared with the stock pump. It would be nice to lumb two pums into the system just in case... and so rapidly you've increases the complexity of the system. Is the added efficiency worth the increase in complexity? The answer is going to be totally subjective based on the operator's goals and capability. For the OEMs it is, and is increasingly so. It is actually much more efficient to generate the power needed to run an electric over hydraulic power steering pump than it is run the hydraulic pump all the time, because the average load is so low... this won't really be the case for a water pump, but for some situations would make a lot of sense. You might actually dispense with the t-stat at some point as well if you have control of both the water pump speed and fan speed.. but again, is this a realistic thing to do for your average vanagon owner? I doubt it's worth it.

The power steering pump is though... which is why I have one sitting here ready to go on my new van.. and dump the old mechnical/hydraulic one. It also means I can mount both it and the res right next to the rack and have really short power steering hoses, and variable steering assist... full on in parking, almost nothing on the freeway, all while getting a mpg bump(might not be very noticeable but it'll be there) and a bump in power/torque. Very nice. If it all works out well, we'll roll it into a kit for customers.

Jim Akiba


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