Well, If I have to buy 1000, I will have plenty to share with anybody else that wants some!

edit:

looks like it also comes in 100 ct, thats a little more reasonable...

http://www.stockcap.com/store/Produc...o.aspx?id=2771

 

New pipes are only like 50$. I wouldnt mess with caps, as thats almost 1/2 the price right there of one of the 2 coolant pipes. Weld and tap is the only way i'd do it (and did do it)

 

With the motor in the car, you would still recommend welding? I can barely fit a hand in the back there, even with the plenum off. What do you mean by "tap"? (understood the weld part )

 

tapping is the process of cutting threads in a hole to allow you to screw in a plug. this is not something that can be done with the rear cast coolant pipe on the car, and I dont think this change would be worth the trouble to remove that crossover pipe with the motor in the car...

 

If one disconnects/plugs that bypass line, isnt coolant still bypassing the tstat via the heater hose? They both go into the same area so i'd assume removing the bypass would do nothing, unless you also block off the heater line.

Cant really see the benefit of removing the bypass.

 

It would get useless stuff out of the engine bay. I was also thinking about the heater circuit and that it basically flows to and from the same points... so I still dont know why nissan put this hose on the front.

Maybe it is a legacy part similar to the mechanical fan pully? I already removed that one...

 

Doesnt really take up THAT much space anyway, in my case I have my heater piping blocked off, so all I have is that bypass piping. Now if heater piping is left as is, and it is infact bypassing the tstat as well, then yeah it would make sense to remove that bypass line without having any issues. I wouldnt block off both heater and the bypass

Id leave at least one line bypassing the tstat to keep some kind of flow through the system.

 

i think he means welding the two side water/coolant pipes, not the rear pipe which would be a huge PITA. only takes a few minutes to swap out those hard pipes if you've already drained down.
cleans up the engine bay and gets rid of another potential source of leaks. the downside (i think) is it takes longer to warm up / get into closed loop fuel control & and the ecu has you running more aggressive timing during warm up. i got this warning from a friend and a local tuner mentioned it as well. i guess you just have to make sure you've warmed up the car adequately before going WOT.

 

That should go without saying

Raj, I can show ya what I have done tomorrow

 

Gentlemen, with this coolant pipe removed how does the thermostat ever get enough flow over it to open? It seems pretty obvious that it's bypassing the radiator and directing flow at the thermostat for a reason. That being the opening of the thermostat. I'd also suspect that drilling the thermostat to direct some flow past the thermostat will be very difficult to do without damaging the thermostat itself. It's very hard to get at the lower plate and the thermostat is perminantly attached to the cover.

 

If you remove the bypass tube than you'd most likely remove the stat as well.

 

the thermostat doesn't rely on flow to open it, the thermostat opens at a predetermined temperature. once the engine coolant is up to temperature, the temp of the hot water affects the spring in the thermostat and it opens up. to see this, take a thermostat and put it in a pot of water and turn on the stove. as the temp approaches 200 degrees, you'll see the t-stat open up.

as I stated in previous posts, the bypass tube is to help get the engine up to operating temp faster. When it comes to emissions, you want the engine to warm up as fast as possible. while the engine is still cold, it produces more of the "bad" emissions.

 

You need to think a little more.
If you have no flow, you have no temperature change at the thermostat. Once the engine coolant is up to temperature.... well, nothing happens as there is no temperature change at the thermostat! This is the entire reason cars have a bypass, in order to flow heated water over the stat, heat the thermostat so that it may open. The bypass most certainly has absolutely nothing to do with getting an engine up to temperature faster (that’s what a thermostat is for). It's job is to heat the thermostat so that it may open, and possibly stop un-uniform water pressure buildup. Without it, the thermostat will open considerably later, and after the water at the heads is considerably over temperature (as the thermostat will be heated eventually by heat soak).
I suspect that also with the thermostat closed and no bypass you'll be cavitating the water pump, and cause hot spots in the head. However this is purely conjecture.

Chris, unfortunately on one of my race engines I had issues with removing the stat (and bypass) on a cold winters day racing. Miserable, with only 130 litres on board (so pushing it to get to the next pit) so little time to warm her up. Avgas, running rich, couldn't get anywhere near enough heat into the engine and ran a number 2 rod bearing on the first 30 mile lap. Bearings had done about 150 miles since replacement with OEM bearings. Needless to say I'll not run my race car without a stat again.

 

im actually with redmist on this.... i have done lots to reorganize this engine bay... but this radiator bypass has messed with me a little.

hes right, the thermostat will open later if there is no coolant cycling over it... thats for sure. i think that telling ourselves the water from the heater core will do it is only somewhat accurate, because that will depend on water actually running thru the heater core.... if you do not have the climate control **** set to full hot, the water valve will be closed...

i am concerned with what happens while the engine is initially heating up, until the thermostat is fully open.

 

this is on topic enough...

for you engine bay cleanup freaks, i want to show you one of my recent changes. Once you do all this coolant line "shaving", the heater core source hose is the last hose on the passenger side coolant pipe.

i wanted to replace that ugly steel pipe with a nice aluminum one, and i wanted no ports on it. so we made a billet flange for the water pipe, and i have an aluminum pipe to weld to it (work in progress, pics next week).

so i moved the heater hose source pipe back to the aluminum cast pipe. All i had to do to the stock hose to make it fit, was take the section from the bleeder valve to the OEM pipe, and cut one of the longer legs shorter and its lines up perfectly with the new source. No more heater hose next to my valvecover! note the new port near where the passenger side pipe bolts up.

 

Beautiful TIG work, and wonderful manifold! If only I had of known about your custom manifolds before I built my own twin TB, moly one.
Might try and replicate your bypass. I always hated the potential air trap of the standard upward pointing bypass.

Daniel.

 

i wish i could tig like that... thats my friend chris' work. post some pics of your manifold!

 

The engine in it's initial configuration. It's going Cosworth this season.


The car

 

that thing is cool, id like to see some videos!

 

Awesome! That lost pic looks like it could be a shot from Transformers 3