well I understand the reason for gutting, but I wasn't really sure about the flow, makes sense though. flow will allow the coolant to be mostly uniform in its temperature when the t-stat would normal open.

couldn't you drill a hole or two in the t-stat to always have flow (i think someone posted that earlier)? otherwise, I think it would take forever to warm-up, especially if you are driving (and not in boost in your case).

 

Parts ordered from BEGI. Thanks for all the help guys, especially lots of thanks to Curly!

 

You're welcome and good luck, post here with any install instructions, it should hopefully go smoothly. Have you bought the Yukon hose yet?

 

I'll post install info here when I do it to make the thread a good resource for others researching the same thing.

Haven't bought the Yukon hose yet. I don't pick the car up from Blackbird till Sunday so I will probably get it later this week.

-Ryan

 

how difficult is it to get at the back of the motor to do this swap?

 

Not terrible. Removal is easy, cleaning and tightening it for a good seal is the hard part. Joe has a method of unbolting the PP frame and jacking up the back of the tranny to gain more room between the engine and fire wall that seems like it would be a big help.

 

Just wanted to say another thank you for the help with figuring this out.

Finished the reroute today.

Removal of the old stuff off the back of the head went fairly smooth. BEGI sends their reroute instructions along with their spacer, so I was able to follow those directions for all of the stuff on the back of the head. The one thing that is a real PITA is getting the stud out of the back of the head with the double nut method. Overall though, the whole process of the reroute is like yoga for your fingers. It's pretty tight back there, but totally do-able.

I kept the thermostat intact and ran a hose from the barb on the spacer to the hard line that runs under the exhaust manifold and back into the mixing manifold to circulate water when the thermostat is closed. Warm up does not take long with this method, but idling temps are quite low - the car wanted to hold about 155-160* on idle before I drove it, and that's with a 180* thermostat. Goes with the territory of adding a bigger (55mm) radiator and a reroute I guess.

Where I ran into trouble is the Yukon hose. My intercooler pipe, because of how it is routed, perfectly blocks the path that the reroute hose needs to take to get to the radiator...

Because of this, I had to run the Yukon hose under the intercooler pipe, which placed it way too far down and towards the driver's side to line up with the radiator. So I went back to Autozone and found another great "S" bend hose to bridge the gap. I cut the extra length off both the Yukon hose and the S bend hose and stuck them together using my old in-line coolant temp sensor coupLer thingy.

For those who are looking for these hoses, I got both at Autozone:
The big long Yukon hose is made by Dayco - part #71989
The S bend hose is also made by Dayco - part #72166





All the parts from BEGI:

 

I'll take pics of my mess of a reroute. right now it has a bunch of rubber hoses, soon, if ARTech agrees, they will all be metal for the sake of reliability.

 

The only drawback I see to metal is the heat - you probably have to be careful to not have it contacting vacuum lines and stuff...

I'm surprised by how much of a rat's nest it is under the front of the intake manifold now with that snake of a radiator hose taking up what little room was left, but hey if it works I'm not complaining!

 

or touching the positve terminal of your starter... and/or alt...

 

I haven't done my reroute yet, but I was thinking of using a straight pipe and these things to attach it to the manifold and insulate at the same time.

edit: or these - http://www.mcmaster.com/#pipe-routing-clamps/=ek8ulr

 

Soviet - I can't load the Mcmaster link for some reason, but that U-bolt with rubber could work. The downside to a straight metal pipe running along the intake mani as opposed to the Yukon hose which is just one long rubber hose is that you use more total hose clamps which means more possible failure points, and the hard line, because it isn't flexible, allows less adjustment - and there are several things over on that side that you may need it to avoid (fuel lines, charcoal canister and associated vaccuum hard lines, etc.)

 

OK I have a question for everyone.

So cruising on the freeway, with the reroute and a move up to a 52mm radiator, my coolant temp is now hovering at 160* and oil is at 150*. I have 180* thermostats in the coolant system as well as in the oil sandwich plate, so this means the cooling system is just being reallllly effective.

Should I move up to a 190 or 200 degree thermostat for the motor to get my cruising temps up to the 180* range, or are these temps OK for the motor? None of this will affect on-track use and temps, but I don't want to wear the motor down by running it too cold while I'm on the street.

Would prefer to NOT change the thermostat since it's now on the back of the motor and a PITA to get to...

-Ryan

 

changing the thermostat wont change your temps.

honestly, doing a reroute doesn't magically make your temps that low -- that's not the purpose.

Does your heater core exit dump into the upper hose?

 

No heater core.

The BEGI spacer, which is pre-thermostat, has a barb on it for the hose that goes to the heater core. Since I don't have one, I just ran a hose from that barb to the hard coolant line that runs under the exhaust manifold and into the mixing manifold - so that is the coolant route when the thermostat is closed.

-Ryan

 

okay that will do it.

just make a block off plate in front of part of the rad.

 

I put duct tape on my old mesh grill.

 

So the consensus is that it's really just doing that good of a job at the whole cooling thing and that the radiator needs to be partially blocked to bring cruising temps up?

 

Correct. Otherwise the coolent temp will never get to optimal operating temp. In the past i used cardboard and duct tape to cover the entire radiator. But that was when i lived in Chicago with there brutal winter weather. Weeks of freezeing wind chill weather between -30 and -54 degrees.

 

hmm interesting read. I was considering doing a reroute since my head is off and easy to get at. I have a MX3 rear thermostat housing and the I was thinking of running a new heater hose to the front where the old thermostat was and tapping the plug that is at the rear of the head for the stock sensor and then since I was gonna use the old rear cover on the front see if the fan switch would fit it if not re tap it. I was not considering a spacer since I was gonna run the heater hose to the front. has any one done a 1.6L this way before?