Just a word of caution.

Most know that the only circulation the motor sees during warm-up is through the heater core in the stock condition, and after the motor warms up it is still the major flow for the rear cylinders. Hopefully no member will close off this water route without compensating in other ways.

 

My tube is held on by the turbo manifold bolts (I think <G>) and is about 12 inches long. I do not believe there is any way to turn it around since it is just a straight tube. Does yours have a bend in it?

 

Yes, that long tube was cut close to the water pump. The tube end going to waterpump was blocked with the plug. Then the whole aluminum part where lower radiator hose is clamped was turned 180 degrees pointing generally forwards. It might hit sway bar ot steering in stock Miata, but my slightly modified tube frame one it fits well.

I'll see if I can snap a photo of this if needed.

Good point olderguy.

hrk

 

Yes, a phote is definitely needed! If I were to cut the tube short, the only thing that keeps it in the mixing manifold is an oring which wouldn't hold and the tube would go shooting out as soon as the system was pressurized. I must be missing something.

 

When I first did my reroute I had all the rear water going through the turbo. This was a big screw up because I didn't have hardly any flow through there. I don't think I damaged anything (at least I hope I didn't) by the time I figured this out and sent a bypass around the turbo straight to the radiator. I measured my water flow at the time and have the numbers around here somewhere. There are a ton of people waiting on the writeup for this on my webpage but I have been pretty lazy on updating it.

 

I pulled the tube with the o-ring out. I then tapped the hole that it came out of for a pipe plug (don't remember the size off the top of my head). I think that I used jb weld or something like that to make sure that the plug didn't come out.

 

Fantastic! That is what I needed. I am scared to do it to mine without a backup mixing manifold <G>. I sold an engine to a guy in our club so maybe I'll ask to borrow his manifold before I modify mine.

 

As I have not routed mine yet, I will concede. Unless I can prove other wise one day.

But the whole point is to remove heat from the engine. My personal preference would be to have to wait on the heater warming up (yes, I am a wimp and hate cold weather) than to have overheating problems in the summer.
Stephanie

 

I don't think anybody is arguing that. It seems virtually impossible for the BEGI reroute NOT to do that since it's sending the engine heated water to the rad rather than back into the engine.
What I wonder is what difference it makes to coolant temp vs. other options.

 

When I get my car back, I will take some temp measurements.
Stephanie

 

One thing if you guide this hose from heater into radiator instead of engine is that on street use or light duty big part of the fluid flow will go throught this hose, bypassing the thermostat and prolonging heat-up time. On racecar it does not matter, but on street, the motor might not reach normal operating temps.

hrk

 

Maybe it even shorten the engines live as it will not heat up asap...
But it is great when car is hot...

 

I've got the BEGI re-route that comes with the turbo kit and a 37mm Koyo rad. If the heaters in the off position the coolant temp dial gets upto where it remains just as quick as normal, well it seems that way anyway, but it does sit about (the needle on the gauge) at about 75degrees from the horizontal now whereas before the kti it sat at 90 degrees. I've only done one 50 mile drive with the kit on and the wastegate was wound open as it was on the way to be delived to the people mapping my ECU so the car was effectively normally aspirated. I suspect when its running 220rwhp it'll get a bit warmer and a bit quicker.

 

Even though I don't put many miles on my car, the fans used to continually kick on and off. Now, the temps stay just slightly lower (I can probably look at some old link ecu datalogs to get real numbers) and I rarely hear my fans/relay kicking on/off. Since I don't have a heater core in the car I cannot tell you how it affected that but I do know that it takes a while longer to warm up to temp now (but not a horrible amount of time).

 

I don't want to say it's a bad system... but i have my doubts...
I can understand that heating up the whole coolant will take longer than the oem route.

 

Perhaps a more proper solution would involve a second thermostat that would allow coolant to loop during warm-up, but would then close off the loop path and force coolant into the radiator at operating temp.

 

Would the majority agree that without a heater core.. running it from the back of the head to the radiator and from the front corner of the block to the radiator is correct?

To add to that... where do I then tap for a water cooled turbo....

 

Here's another level to the question.....

Out of the factory there's a water hose at the back of the block (right above the clutch) which is blocked off..... would it be possible to connect a hose to this fitting and effectively achieve a partial coolant reroute? Where would you connect it into? The return hose to the top of the radiator?

 

That's partially how the traditional coolant re-route is accomplished. Moving the thermostat and outlet hose to the back of the head at the location you've described.

 

I would agree. Just stick a thermo on the back of the head and you'll have what IS the OE fwd routing.

Do you still have coolant that's routed through the TB and across the front of the engine? That would work. You could also drill/tap (or weld) a bung on the rear coolant cap that you'll use for the reroute at the back of the head OR source it from the new cap that you put on the front.