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how to route rear coolent line on magna


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sorry guys i should know this one but its been a while since i worked on the car. i am installing the lower magna and not sure how I am supposed to route the rear S shaped coolent line that is coming off the metal pipe and used to connect to the lower part of the oem intake. any hints or pics?

 

thanks.

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I put a big bolt in mine, then plugged the bottom port over by the thermostat. I used to have a soft hose running over to there, I think it's to equalize coolant temps in the head, but I don't think it's really necessary. the S part is supposed to go over to the front, under the thermostat.
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That forces 100% of the coolant leaving the rear of the head that was already heated from the engine to return back to the water pump to be recirculated without being cooled by the radiator unless it was cooled by the heater core and is it winter year round where you live? That is supposed to flow to the front of the head to pass across the CTS. The Magna used a metal tube for this and only a portion goes back to the rear steel bypass tube into the water pump without being cooled and that's the warm up cycle so you get HEAT before your stat opens. You didn't get the other bypass tube with your Magna intake did you? Most don't or maybe you never seen one it goes back that same path your Starion intake had just in a tube on the outside and it went into the underside of the intake in front so it would still let coolant flow across the CTS then get sent out the stat and into the radiator. If you plug that port like you did you reduced your cooling system and it may not seem like much but some is better than none. You can put a port on the underside of the intake in the front its still there. Put a hose on there to get the job done. You have coolant that didn't circulate through the entire cylinder head exiting the front telling the CTS and temp. gauge what your temps are from that coolant NOT what it is at the rear of the head. Anyone ever put a temp. sending unit back there and see what two gauges would read I'd think that would be quite interesting.

 

See it?

http://www.b2600turbo.com/images/magnablockdifferences.JPG

Edited by Indiana
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localized hot spots could be contributing to some of these problems maybe ?

I always shoot for duplicating the oe tried & proven routing.

 

I remember some CA18 guys ran into problems using the fwd head gasket on their rwd motors, due to different coolant passage hole layout.

 

Some discussion on this topic on austarion where folks take water out the front of the DSM head welch plug on twin cam conversions

 

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It's been a while but I think I just took a couple rough measurements and asked them to let me look at the selection of hoses at the auto parts store. One of them, the first one I tried, fit fine to connect that pipe at the back of the engine to a fitting below the thermostat. I don't even remember wondering whether that was where it was supposed to be routed to. I just kinda, routed it there. I don't think I have any cooling problems but I also have a Griffen radiator.
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  • 2 months later...

thanks Indiana for the diagram. so this is what i figured is happening. water comes from the pump and splits, some goes to the front of the head and rest goes through the heater core and goes to the rear of the head if heater valve is open. so what happens if you block that split and the heater is off, that route is not cirulcating anything.

 

In turn from what i can tell, the purpose of the front connection is to get warmer water that comes from the engine to the bottom of the thermostat and if blocked will have little consequence. I usually drill a small hole in the thermostat so in this case the flow will get the thermostat warm anyway so I decided to block my lower pipe also.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
Ok so i have noticed that the thrmostat defintly does not open soon enough so the lower part is not seeing sufficient hot water. i have just that tiny hold on the thermostat letting the water go around. I will drill a 1/4" hole in the thermostat and that should let enough hot water go by to warm up the thermostat.
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Can you just put a hose barb under the stat housing? The flow pattern is in the service manuals its the same that's just the quick warm up path. I'm not sure how the bypass tube works on a Magna engine and how they did the heater core connection and valve I'd have to look at the books again.

 

 

Edited by Indiana
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I'm in the same boat. I keep looking at it and thinking .. I am going to have to pull the intake to get to that. Either way i need to replace the intake gasket so the next time the weather breaks for a day off I'm diving in!
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Wow, ok, I will be changing mine to the tube. Before I had a soft hose and it sucked the big one, so I eliminated it. I'll find a metal tube and mount it to the intake stud. Thanks Indy!

 

Did you use heater hose? Why was it a problem? I ask because that is what i plan on doing.

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Keep in mind that the stock magna hose nipple that feds from the heater core to the front water passage (where we have our T-stats) has a very small hole in it, about 1/4". If you don't put in a restrictor, you'll be messing up the coolant flow ratios to the block/head.
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Keep in mind that the stock magna hose nipple that feds from the heater core to the front water passage (where we have our T-stats) has a very small hole in it, about 1/4". If you don't put in a restrictor, you'll be messing up the coolant flow ratios to the block/head.

 

So you are saying I should put a 1/4" hose barb in the bottom of the T-stat housing and run a reducer from the pipe coming off the back of the head. Instead of using a 1/2" barb in the housing.

If I am understanding correctly?

 

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Too late now, lol. Whenever I do something, I learn that I should have done it differently!

 

On my rebuild, I used a short threaded male-male fitting, then a female-female "street elbow" and a 2.5 or 3" male-male straight section, then made that shoot straight under the manifold very close to the head flange back to the metal pipe at the back. I used a section of heater hose for that. It's apparently too big now. lol.

 

Mine takes a while to warm up when just idling. The only drawback of that is without an idle control motor, I get to hold my foot on the throttle to keep it going till it's warm.

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I don't have that hose at all, and neither do 99% of those running Magnas or other MPI's.

 

You don't want coolant flowing from the front to the back like that, the back already has a coolant path via the steel pipe that runs along the back of the block. The only reason it exists on the magna is because the thermostat is on the other end of the head.

 

 

I'm not arguing the merits of this coolant path, just that if you feel it's needed, don't go too big or you'll likely have uneven cooling in the head (which leads to cracks). The factory engineers determined that the passage restrictor shoudl be no larger than about 1/4", and I'd assume they knew what they were doing since they built it (the motor).

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well the way I have it now, i drive the car for 10 minutes and the gauge will go up to maybe 150 and the fan never kicks in. I don't think the water temp under the thermostat area is showing accurately. any suggestions?

 

the 1/4 hold i drilled into the thermostat helped a little. before it would barely get past 100 degree after 10 min driving. I took out the thermostat this morning because i didnt want to damage the engine with hot spots until i figure out what is going on.

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Yeah. I don't want problems to arise, but my thermostat does open and function normally, and my aem shows that the cooant gets up to about 205 degrees before the thermostat fully opens, and then, depending on speed, it goes down from two to 5 or 6 degrees.

 

I might be draining the coolant shortly to replace the drain **** on the radiator, and when I have it drained, that would be the time to block off the passage there. But the stock intake does allow cooant to flow from the front to the back like that.

 

really, I think it's going to be beneficial since it circulates the hot coolant faster than it might if it were blocked off. I can understand the restrictor though since the rear water port is smaller, then goes through the heater core and back to the tube. I have no problems getting hot air though.

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Water flows into the block via the water pump. It comes out the rear port on the head, and the thermostat port in the front. The front is thermostaticaly controled, the rear port is not. Because the rear port flows though the heater core, you can get heat in the cabin before the thermostat opens. This also prevents the rear of the block/head from overheating because that side of the motor always has flow (because there is no stat control on that port).

 

The back of the motor will always run hotter because the water passes over the front cylinder jackets first, so keeping flow past the rear cylinders is an important function of that port.

 

Routing a line between the front and rear via that bypsss tube will serve no useful purpose other than to disrupt water flow. The stock intake does flow water from front to back with no stat control. It's flow comes out of the front half of the motor (where the stat is), thought the intake to heat it (for emissons purposes only) then back to the water pump via the steel tube. It's constantly flowing wether the stat is open or not, so you'll heat the intake up quickly. I don't know how much volume passes though it though, it may be internaly restricted. The stock intake also has a small port comming off the rear port nipple to heat just the throttle body, and that then flows back into the system via the steel tube to the pump. Thus, the stock system bypasses some hot coolant from the front to heat the mixing chamber, and some from the rear to heat the TB itself.

 

Duplicating this flow pattern with no intake heating (MPI Intakes) just bypasses the tehrmostat and sends water back to the water pump. It will circulate water with no thermostat control, so doing so from the front will rob flow from the rear water port (leading to hot rear cylinders), hence the water port restrictor.

 

The magna diagram shows the tube routing, notice that this is the only path for water to exit the front of head... That is because the magna stat is in the rear of the head instead. You can't emulate that path with the stat in the front (us style) and expect propper temp control function.

 

For artinist to get adequate flow to the stat to warm it and get it to open propperly he can either duplicate the old TBi routing with the bypass (with a restrictor) or drill a hole in the stat (which he has already done). Drilling the hole should have worked. I'd suspect the stat itself at this point, and a boiling water test of the stat woudl be an easy test to verify propper function. Water conducts heat better than most any other element/molecule so even if it's not flowing, it shoudl heat the stat to make it function.

 

I've done neither and I have no problems at all getting good quick warm up and temp regulation. I don't even route though the heater core, it's just a sraight line from the rear port to the water pump inlet.

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