I am going to type in this color in honor
of all the coolant I have spilled, tasted and cleaned up over the last
weeks. I even sprayed a bunch all over my wife by accident – she
vowed never to work on the plane again.
_______________
Problem 2: I was very disappointed to discover that turning off
the alternator makes the engine barely run, especially with any other
electrical load, even with 2 batteries connected. They are fresh
healthy batteries. The voltage drops from 14.2 to 11.5. If running
at less than 2300 RPM when the alternator is turned off the engine begins to
surge or stops running all together (however, running on just one set of coils
improves the problem.) If running at higher RPM the engine will just sag
a little.
Hmmm, this sure doesn't sound right.
Turning off the alternator on mine has zero effect on the engine operation, and
that's just with one battery. In fact, losing my alt fuse in flight was a
non-issue also, though it would have been a bit more serious if I hadn't
noticed the low voltage (about 11.5 IIRC) on the meter.
Think about your primary power wiring a
minute. Does the battery have a big beefy wire running to the
bus? When you turn off your alt, is there any chance that your
battery is being forced to feed the bus through a small gauge
wire? That would cause a voltage drop. When you turn off the
alt, is it just the alt, or a master switch of some sort? Will
this change the way the pumps, and ignition get there power, maybe from an
essential bus? As has been mentioned, an essential bus will be lower in
voltage, due to the drop across a diode. These are just some things to
think about.
This calls in serious issues about my electrical reliability. I may
decide to install a switch to disable one set of coils, or trading the
momentary switch that came with the EC2 to a regular 3 position switch.
Those LS1 Coils sure do seem to need a lot of Juice.
I installed full size switches for my
ignition disable function rather than the momentary switch that was provided.
I'd like to say that I did it for some grand reason, but in reality, I didn't
notice that Tracy sent the switches until after I had
installed the switches I had :-) Still, you just shouldn't have to do
this for the reason you're thinking. There has to be some answer for #2.
Yup, got big wires from the battery
directly to a Buss set aside just for the Coils and injectors. No diodes
or other interference. The voltage drop is normal considering I am
turning off the alternator. Are you using the LS1 coils or the stock coils.
That could be a difference. I wish I had lost my switch before installing
J
Problem 3: (THE BIG PROBLEM) My coolant doesn’t seem to be flowing well,
despite the fact that I have no thermostat and have welded the bypass passage
in the pump housing. I ran for almost an hour at 3000 RPM with no
apparent problem. Going up to 4000 RPM after that the coolant quickly
overheated and boiled over. Surprisingly, the radiator was just
luke-warm.
B) the Water pump sold to me by Adkins is really for a 3rd
gen and is running backward. – possible because the outlet side of the
rad seems to get warmer than the inlet side, but only slightly maybe and it is
closer to the turbo.
Does your water pump housing look very
similar to the one in the attached pics? If so, it's a 2nd
gen. I would expect that's what you would have received from
Atkins. How do your belts run? A second gen wp should run the
same direction as the eccentric shaft. A 3rd gen runs opposite.
Yes, it looks almost exactly like the one
you showed (the spare 2nd gen I have sitting around) except for the
modifications to chop it down lower, change to AN fittings and block the
thermostat. Pump is turning same direction as e-shaft. I thought
maybe a 3rd gen might also appear very similar but unknowingly
installing one would make the water run backward if you didn’t reverse
the rotation. Should be easy enough to check.
E) Maybe the thermostat bypass passage is not properly welded closed.
– can’t see it because of the welded plate, will have to look with
a dental mirror. F) ???? any input or other ideas?
I was suspecting this as well. Are
you positive that the water outlet from the housing didn't get welded
shut?
Where is your water temp
sensor? What does it show?
The main coolant passage is open for sure,
the temp sensor is in the 1/8 NPT hole on that pump housing you showed (the
other holes are chopped off). The sensor is visible when looking in the
outlet. Water temp slowly rises like it should and after about 30
min (at 3000 RPM) seemed to level off at about 150. Upon going to higher RPM
it started to fluctuate (very quickly) between 160 and 260. Oil temp had
leveled off at about 190.
After all this thinking, this is becoming
the most likely cause – easy to check, but very hard to fix.
Thanks for you help