I need you guys help with water lines for my Tunnel ram. I have attached a pic of the ram showing 4 x 1/2" NPT holes, 2 upfront, and 2 at the back. What I propose to do is have a remote 'Moroso' style thermostat housing at the front which I will pipe to the radiator as normal. What I am unsure of, is where to pipe the 4 NPT holes to for optimum cooling and no hot spots in the engine. -back to back (left to right) or, -front to back (left and right) or ? Cheers Royden
The water flows from the water pump hose inlet out the two pump exits on either side thru the block to the rear and up to the back of the heads. If you pull to much water from the back of the block the heads will get way to hot. What works well on my Tunnel Ram is to pull water only from the front of the heads right below the intake bolt hole. The problem with mine was the hole was 3/8 NPT. Check yours again to make sure its 1/2 NPT. If it is you have no problem pulling high flow rates from these two ports with 5/8" hose or #10 running to the Morroso thermo housing. If you have the 3/8 NPT which measures about 1/2" across then you'll need a fitting with .400" ID such as the Performance stainless steel 5/8" hose nipple. This was the only one I found with enough ID to make me sleep well at night. With this setup I found that the system ran just fine without a themostat installed. You can run restrictor plates if it gets real cold down under. Not so much of a problem in south Texas. I made a 10 mile cruze up the freeway Sunday for a photo shoot in the Black car. No problems in 100 deg. Texas heat at 3000rpm sustained. All I have is the Meizere pump from TA and a 3 core radiator. I could use dual fans the single I have now can creep at lights after its hot. Let me know if you need some pictures of my rig.
I just remembered something else. The water port on the TA head is smaller then the iron heads. I found during a test fit that the floor of the heads water exit port cut off 30% of the NPT hole. I tapered the backside of my adaptor plates which are fairly thick. This way I got to port my water ports:beer . I you have 1/2 NPT then they moved your hole down some away from the intake bolt to allow for the larger fittings. This will be more of an issue.
Helpful as ever David cheers. That is what I was thinking but wanted some input. The NPT thread measures approx. 13/16". I will run a -12 from side to side at the back, then run -12 from each side to the thermostat housing at the front. I took a better pic of the NPT thread, so you can see the difference between bolt holes and the water hole. Thanks again David:beer :beer
