Seeing as I am stuck at home sick, I figured I'd start a different conversation. Anyone done a reverse cooling set up on a small block? What did you use for a pump? How did you plumb the system? Any pics?

isnt reverse cooling heating?

Good topic.

I think for starters you will need a remote pump from mezziere or whoever. You will then likely need to drill and tap your intake to accept coolant at the rear of the cylinder head. I believe you could use the meziere WP adaptor on the timing cover and weld some AN fittings to it for your return. Your remote pump can then feed a manfold that pumps the coolant into each corner of the manifold.

That seems a little to simple I must be leaving something out. If its that simple I will consider this for my 416 build.

Or block off the stock water pump holes on timing cover and use the side freeze plugs as returns. I've seen the thread in plugs for those holes, wouldn't be a big deal to run a couple with AN fittings.

This engine was posted in another thread, should give you an idea of the plumbing, though this isn't reverse flow.

on our engine we taped into the sides of the timing cover, blocked holes from block & ran tubing to center core plugs, had a alum. plug made & taped to our fitting size, by going to the center core hole it puts water in on the two hot exhaust cylc. for beter heat distribution,jg309

Done it and it worked great.

It's rocket science. No you do not need a remote pump. When I did it, I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing. Seemed I was a DA and didn't know anything. But, everytime I did something new some jerk was over taking pictures when I had the hood off or the engine apart. Next thing you know after going back to the same track a year later someone was running the same deal.

If you want to do it just look at a sprint car setup. The way they put water in the block is an excellent place to take it out. Their blocks have screw in core plugs. You will need something different with cast iron blocks. You also do not have to run lines to the rear of the heads. If you do that you need to change some other things to benefit from it. Look at your head gasket really close and it will tell you what to do.

Signed Smart Ellic

This maybe a dumb question.. but why not just run a water pump backwards with reverse flow blades on it?

I did my modification 3 years ago to stop blowing head gasket, I blocked the holes inside of the timing covers, weld two pipes to the side of the cover, run 2 hoses to each side of the block and I used the center core plug to get cool water to the part of the block and the head where the two exhaust valves are together. It works very good for me

Here is a side view of the plumbing from the side of the block to the timing cover.

Mike Gray

nice engine,how manyhorses before NOS

I was going to make the core plugs with AN fittings to sell, but with the way the Australian dollar is, it wouldn't be worthwhile to sell them in the US and the market over here wouldn't warrant doing them.
The principal is very simple, pump cool water into the heads, pull the hot water into the radiator. This can be achieved with a conventional pump and or/a remote pump. I will check out a head gasket, as per Leon's suggestion though.

I always toyed with the idea of a "2 circuit" cooling system. One for the heads and one for the block. Just isolate the head gasket cooling passages and run a remote pump for the heads that you could augment with a cool can at the track. To my mind if you can keep the heads cool independent of the block by using different flow rates and 2 smaller side by side radiators.

Not reverse cooling but possibly more effective by allowing you to 'tweak' the respective temps.

filled blocks especially tend to stay hot once they get hot and this taxes the system and also tends to keep the oil hotter than 'ideal'. Aluminum heads can wick away more heat and if the head gasket had some thermal isolation from the block deck surfaces you might not need a very large system if it was efficiently designed.

If you wanted to get semi-sophisticated you could even make the systems closed-loop/self regulating using temp feedback (thermocouples or RTD) and even variable speed pumps and flow control valves. Lots of decommisioned industrial process control equipment can be found dirt cheap if you know where to look.

I'm an industrial engineer...can you tell?

If you need the plugs for the freeze plug holes, just call Ritter. He has them. My craftsman truck motor was done that way.

Howard