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Western Washington isn't like the rest of the country. We have maybe 7 days a year where AC would be really nice to have but its pretty easy to do without. Most people dont have AC in their houses around here. In fact, i've never had AC anywhere i've lived in/around seattle. When the heat comes we tend to embrace it rather than hide from it.
And I know plenty of people without AC in their cars that are well over 25.
Are there currently any other options available off the shelf for this, or is Begi the only one that makes this? What do you guys that have an Absurdflow vband lowmount setup use for this?
Another thread resurrection, arise from the dead thread, you're needed again...
I have an MSM, with A/C and P/S, and a low-mount EFR6258 but unfortunately the lower radiator hose obstructs the barb where the EBC hose needs to connect to on the compressor's housing (the location is pointed to by the green arrow):
The yellow "circle" shows where the water inlet barb was modified to provide some clearance for the EFR6258 but it's not enough to allow the EBC hose to be connected.
Here's 99mx5's setup which shows the EBC mounted and this hose connection (approximately 4 o'clock).
99mx5 modified his water inlet and re-routed his radiator hose forward, through the belts and pulleys:
This looks "scary-close" to the belts and pulleys and I have a larger sway bar which means I can't really take this route.
After spending a lot of time under the car and feeling around under there, I believe that if the water inlet's radiator hose barb is rotated to point somewhere between 45* down and straight down instead of parallel to the ground, there is actually enough room to run the hose behind the A/C compressor and under it, straight to the radiator inlet and give me clearance for the EBC hose. You can see in the top photo that there is enough room for the radiator hose to run behind the A/C compressor.
It may need to run at 45* behind the A/C compressor and the P/S hard lines moved a bit but it's a far more direct route than the convoluted across-and-weave OEM route.
Has anyone tried this before, it seems much simpler than other solutions so there must be some reason why more complex versions have been produced - and WHY didn't Mazda do this in the first place?
If you're still looking for suggestions, here's what I did with my EFR setup with PS/AC and an ARTech manifold that was interfering with the lower rad hose to the mixing manifold. I have zero welding skills (except for the JB kind), so my solution was to cut off that angle altogether, create a new lip and hook up a flexible rad hose to the straight piece. This left enough wiggle room to route the flexible rad hose around the manifold.
It was only meant as a temporary solution to get me on the road (and to the track) quickly. I saw some of the ones that flipped the whole thing 180* and had the pipe coming out the front which seemed like better solutions, so I figured I would eventually have something like that. I'll look at it more this winter and decide for sure.
I just made my EFR setup with AC and PS, made a similar pump inlet mod as lokiel's and ended up making a heat shield plate that protects the water and PS hoses from the manifold heat.
Now I know why the lower radiator hose takes what I deemed to be a convoluted path rather than more directly behind+under the A/C compressor and straight to the radiator inlet, on LHD cars your steering shaft is in the way!
On our RHD cars in Australia it's on the other side so we have much more space there to route the hose as I suggested once the barb is modified. Mazda can simply use the same parts for LHD and RHD markets, it had nothing to do with optimising the hose routing.
Good Afternoon all,
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but figured it would be better then starting a new one.
So I ended up doing the coolant hose relocation that some of the other guys did in this thread, but the problem I'm having now is just finding a custom hose that will fit. The guy I got to weld in the bung for me welded it angled a bit high which would not allow me to use a straight coolant hose without it kinking. I was thinking of using a piece of the metal coolant pipe that got deleted from doing this, and two pieces of hose instead of one to make the route work, but wanted some advice or suggestions from what others ended up doing, and I honestly do not know where I can find miscellaneous hosing to make this custom route work. Been asking auto parts store in my area, but they treat me like I'm dumb for asking, and can find anything online that supplies hosing I need.
Here are some pics of my situation. The coolant hose you see is actually the top radiator hose. It is actually pretty close to working, was thinking of cutting this, and using a piece of metal pipe to make this work.
12-14-2009, 02:54 PM
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