Want to get hoses to connect the front radiator to the engine. Does anyone know a good place online to purchase? Or can you purchase just lengths of radiator hose from the local autoparts shop?

Either, go to a plumbing shop for copper pipe, then use flexis at the ends, or find a scrap Mr2 and pinch those - they're stainless

Just 1 inch pipes? Using solid copper pipes is more desirable than using flexi hoses i assume?

Hi
I used Ø28mm copper pipe and capillary elbows on
my Coupe. Straight sections of rubber hose onto the
radiator. The heater outlet "teed" into the return pipe
in the tunnel. I used a tyre valve as a bleed at the top
corner of the rad.

The system will pressurise better with the minimal amount of compliance i.e flexi Hose. You need the system to pressurise to work effectively. I use 1 inch ally tube in the tunnel, stainless under the front, and some stainless in the rear.

West

28mm copper for me.



These are the front pipes from the tunnel to the radiator.



These are the pipes linking the engine to the pipes in the tunnel.



I used silicone hoses to link the rest.

I am also just planning the cooling system.

What do You think: the normal water pump is enough at idle to cool the engine safely?
I am thinking about removing the pump and leaving the job for an electric instead.

I played safe and fitted a Davies Craig EWP80 electric pump.

I've had problems with my front radiator in the GTM not flowing any water below about 3000rpm.
Just too much restriction in the pipes and bends.
Then of course you are likely to get impeller cavitation above 7000rpm
The Craig-Davies (sic) electric water pump is definitely a good idea.

If I go for an electric pump, I would like to remove the old pump from the system to save a couple of hps above 5000rpm.

I use to run the Davies/Craig pump on my race mini with a blanking plate over the old waterpump housing, it was brilliant but I found it didn't work efficiently as the pump pumps to quickly for the small amount of water in a mini.l I reduced the voltage going into to about 6v (my own variable resistor) and once this was done it worked perfectly. They are suspectable to damage from heat as they are only nylon, keep it out of the engine bay.

You can wire it in 3 ways.

1 running all the time the ignition is on

2 wired through a thermostatic switch

3 wired through their controller which modulates the speed according to temperature.


If you choose options 2 or 3 you can wire it to a constant live so that, when you've turned the engine off, the pump will still circulate the water to avoid heat-soak problems.

You can keep the water pump body and pulley to maintain fan belt tension but remove the impeller to avoid power loss through the pump.

Yep thats the one, we used it to prevent heat soak after racing as well as providing better cooling at high rpm (8500+), the variable resistor was because I didn't want to spend the money on their controller as thats all it is a glorified variable resistor. I had mine conected through a switch so I could turn it on and off as required, I also had a warning light rigged to the pump to show if the pump failed as this seemed to be an initial problem we found if the units got too hot.