Noah

opps wrong thread.

mike_671

iTrader: (4)

dam so far it looks real professional .more pics more pics

dave_v

Great post

y8s

iTrader: (8)

I think your thermostat is upside down Tom... the little jiggly bit should go as close to "up" as possible to help disperse air bubbles.

brgracer

iTrader: (14)

You are absolutely correct and when I put it in finally, it was with the air release at the top which is actually very important which I should of mentioned. That pic was just taken to show the thermostat in the back.

On a side note and update, the reroute is great, but routing the heater return back to the rad after the thermostat does cause super slow warmup, and in the cold weather, I can't get my coolant above ~160F. While I'm sure that this will be awesome on a hot day at the track, I think I will probably modify my setup in one of four ways:

1) Run a radiator blocker in the cold weather like trucks do. (I think paul made one for his car.)
2) Put a valve in the heater core return to the radiator and almost close it off in the winter and open it for track days.
3) Put an inline thermostat in the heater core line (if they make one that small).
4) Take the thermostat out of the back of the head and put it somewhere after the heater return.

Not sure which path I'll take yet.

M-Tuned

iTrader: (6)

Was this a perfect fit? Therefore the thread of the stock sensor?

Thanks,

brgracer

iTrader: (14)

It was NOT a perfect fit which is why you need the included rubber washer to avoid any leaks. I think I have a 1.6L cover and if I can find it, I'll measure the threads.

m2cupcar

iTrader: (5)

fwiw- I used the exact same routing on my FE head and the heater works great. I overbored a small unused sensor hole at the top and threaded in a large barb fitting.

1fastmiata

im in the process of doing my re-route, i was thinking about mating the heater line with the coolant line after the thermostat... any feedback/thoughts on it? turbo tim told me he wasnt sure but if i welded them together on a small angle theoritically it should create a suction...

also i think you said you were running 3/8" line for your heater but were going to run a shut off valve... does this mean you would recomend a smaller line?

brgracer

iTrader: (14)

The problem with that (and this has been reproduced 3x now, if not more) is not heater core flow (heater works fine), but when the heater coolant flow goes to the radiator AFTER the thermostat, there is too much flow into the rad since nothing blocks the heater return to radiator during warmup. Essentially this works like running no thermostat since flow out the back of the engine when the thermostat is closed goes thru the heater core and back to the radiator. Even though the heater core lines are small, it's enough that with a larger aluminum radiator, it is tough to get my coolant temp above 160 or so on a 50-60 degree day when driving (idle is okay since not much rad airflow) and even less on a cold day. So cold warmup is super slow and on a cold day very difficult. You'd think this would be a great thing for a track/turbo car, but I don't think low coolant temp are good for the engine in terms of thicker oil at colder temps/extra fuel dumped b/c coolant temp related fuel adjustment/etc... I'd imagine that over the long haul it'd be much better to have the engine at normal operating temp and normal oil pressures rather than like 100-120 on cold days with higher oil pressure.

So for you, I'd either try to put the heater return BEFORE the thermostat or put a serious restrictor into the heater core return line before it merges into the radiator return. YMMV.

1fastmiata

sorry about that brg, i meant to say BEFORE. so you are saying its a good idea to do it before? because tim said he wasnt sure if it would work alright... to be honest, my temp is so high currently... on the track in 5 laps without the heater on the cars at 3/4 of the way over on the temp gauge... as soon as the temp passes half way all my power is gone... you have a Link... do you know of any way to help this/ tune the link because nobody can help me with it... not even the tune shops.

brgracer

iTrader: (14)

Before should be fine as long as you drill a few small holes in thermostat to allow just some small flow for some circulation before the thermostat opens. But your overheating issue sounds like it's caused by something else as the coolant reroute may make a few degree difference overall, but the main purpose is to even cooling across cylinders instead of giving cyinder 4, the hottest coolant. If you are overheating at the track is sounds more like your cooling system can not handle the extra heat load so you might want to look into a bigger radiator, look for clogs in the smaller coolant passages, make sure your thermostat opens competely, etc....

1fastmiata

hmmm... i have an aftermarket rad.. its a 2.25" rad, not sure of the brand... dual core. i think its about 5yrs old, drained it last year. im not exactly a genius when it comes to radiators or the cooling system so where can i find/unclog the small passageways? just ordered an inline t-stat housing and 180* t-stat from shore motorsports. I am going to work on the car either tomor or tuesday, im going to bring my camera to take pics

1fastmiata

> The radiator is a dual core unit, available from Bill Cardell. It should have twice the cooling capacity of the OEM unit.

^^^^Thats from my uncle, he bought it and installed it.

WestfieldMX5

nice setup brgracer, I'm gonna add it to my page of coulant reroutes. It's been a while since I updated the site, but a completely new site is in the works!

93miagie

brg, what do you think about what 1fast said and about his radiator? i have something similar

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

don't you mean you two are one-in-the-same....

mcsinc

Nice job, brgracer. What do you use for a coolant supply to the turbo? I used a J-shaped piece coming off the coolant pipe (green arrow in pic #1), but was wondering if there is a better place. Anyone else?

I've also turned the t-stat cap pointing to the intake side. My thermosensor is in a fitting I got from BEGi -- it's a nice billet piece that's tapped already, and fits inline with the larger hose that goes to the top of the rad.

On another note, for those of you wo have removed the t-stat neck, how do you route coolant to/from the air valve on top of the intake manifold?

olderguy

iTrader: (19)

The lines that comes to a "T" under the thermostat can be just be connected to each other to complete the circuit.

mcsinc

olderguy: doesn't make sense because they both have coolant coming OUT of the thermostat neck (since it's a tee). Am I wrong in this thinking? It's been awhile since I've looked at where those hoses go/come from in an OEM application. Anyone have a diagram of where they go? I can't figure it out from the diagrams on the m.net/garage parts index.