What are the advantages of each, and disadvantages. Trying to decide if it's worth changing to electric wp, and if so, how much of a pita is it?

 

daily driver, stock water pump

mostly strip car, something thats not driven alot, electric

electric wear out alot faster

or so i was told

 

A lot of people run the electric pump on the street. They are rated for something like 2000 hours? or so which is a good 3 years of normal driving. They take some load off the engine and allow you to easily install a manual override switch. Best of all is when they do finally wear out they are simple to replace. More than worth it IMO. As for HP increase I think it's fairly insignificant.

 

i just put 1 in my 94. I did the cam, timing chain(double roller) and opti conversion. if you plan on doing a cam anytime soon you can get a double roller alot cheaper than a lt4 extreme duty thanks to the electric pump so thats a plus. If you take your car to the track ever you can run the pump to cool the car while in the pits not running. It was easy to install i did the csi which needed alittle grinding done which is not needed on the meizer pump. Most of all i think it is reliabilty that is the main factor. My stock pump lasted 90,000 miles thats some good piece of mind never having to worry about it.

 

Mechanical waterpumps: Don't seem to last half as long as they should if you ask me, they in some cases take the optispark down with them, and it is a hp parasite. Electric waterpumps: Hp adder, advertised to last longer than the stock pumps by a decent margin, not really hard to install, there are guides you can access for the wiring. I would personally recommend a indicator light so you know the very moment it stops pumping and a 160 thermo. to keep it cooler during high rpm operation. And its less hassle to change one if it goes bad. When they go bad, your stranded, you cannot limp them home like you could a stock pump.

 

u have to get a LT1 specific one right? not just a normal cheap o' one from Summit

 

Yes they make them specific for the LT1. Meziere, CSI, and now Summit makes one also.

Meziere-$200
CSI-$135
Summit-$180

 

so basically if i'm gonna drive on the street, it's better to go with stock wp, if a strip car, go with electric, cause i want a fast street car, maybe hit the track once ortwice a year.

 

IMHO if your car is a daily driver I would consider going with the stock pump because they offer higher reliability and when they do fail they give a little more notice than an electric.

My formula is a toy and only driven to work on Fridays, on the weekend, and also sees its share of track time. I installed a CSI pump because I was having some cooling issues in stop and go traffic in Tucson. I also built a current monitoring circuit mounted inside the passenger compartment to monitor my pump status real time. I wanted to know ASAP if the pump failed, in addition to an LED it has an 80 dB audible alarm which alerts me as soon as current stops flowing through my motor.

The problem with a lot of the other monitoring circuits I've seen is that they are just monitoring the voltage on the hot side of the motor. If the motor windings open, the voltage is still there but motor is not running. Just an opinion. I have a schematic of the circuit I designed, if anyone wants to build, one posted here.

 

I understand completely that a lot of folks do run an electric on their daily drivers, it is just my opinion that you stand a higher risk of being stranded due to pump failure running an electric. Its just something stonecoldz might want to consider when making his decision.

 

While the electric you can't limp home and the mechanical you possibly can, your running the risk of damaging the opti in the process and if that happens you end up being stranded and needing to replace a waterpump and now the opti too, It has happened to a few of the members here as I recall.

 

I've been running the heavy duty Mez for over a year and love it. I have heard of close to 10 RWHP on the dyno before.

 

Buy the CSI and with the money you save, buy a spare and stick it in the trunk. Once you change to the electric pump, they are super easy to replace. you could do it on the side of the road, no problem... unplug the connector, remove 6 easy bolts and slap the new one on. I replaced three stock waterpumps in 77,000 miles before I got sick of it. Some people's original pump lasts 100K miles... If you're worried about the pump dying, just rig up a light/buzzer for the temp.

Later, TJ

 

What side of town are you on? I've got a formula as well, I'd be interested in checking yours out...

 

I have a CSI pump that has worked flawlessly.

IMO, don't run one for the HP gain, because you won't see it. I HIGHLY doubt it is worth 10 RWHP, or anywhere close to that.

I did mine because I wanted to run the Cloyes Double Roller chain, and that's the only option I had. The only other reason I can see to running one is if you want it to run while sitting in the pits along w/ the fans on while the car is off to cool it off quickly.

Otherwise, save the $135 for something else (and don't spend the $180+ on the Mez pump....which seems to be less reliable anyway than the CSI, for more money).