good aluminum bb waterpump ?

who makes a good aluminum water pump? I remember reading there were some bad ones going around a while back. thanks ,jon

You might check out 440 sources' offerings. I have one of there blems & its gonna be easy to open up the "blem" restriction. I ain't fitted it/mocked up to the block yet to see if everything (bolt holes/ports etc) is copacetic on the rest of it. iirc its ~ $49. I think shipping is free on $99 or more if you see something else there you need

I have one of the Mancini ones and they are nice and reasonable on price0

The 440 Source housing from roughly 5 to 7 years ago had too small of passages to the lower engine block holes and definitely caused a restriction.

I have one of that version housing and have been dealing with running hot issues that changing most everything else hasn't fixed. (waterpump, thermostat, fan clutch all several times)

In a stock housing you can easily put your finger in through the front water pump area and into the curve where it goes to the block.

That's not possible with the older 440 Source version.

I just bought one of their new revised versions, the passages are definitely larger than the previous ones.
$65 shipped.

I haven't taken it over to the garage to compare it to a factory iron one.

If it's about the same size ports as the factory one I'll be installing it as is.

If it needs any reworking to make the ports larger I'll be doing that.

I'll post about it either way.

Hopefully it cures the run hot issues.

Housing or pump?There is a difference.I run an old MP housing I bought 20 years ago used.Pump I run a Mopar piece.Been in at least 15 years and still great.Rocky

The PRW pump/housing worked good om my 505 stroker. Not sure how or if it is any different the the 440 source ones?https://www.prwonlinestore.com/product/1474400-high-performance-aluminum-water-pump

I did a side by side comparison of the big block water pump housings and here's what I found.

The older restrictive 440 Source housing has seriously restrictive small lower passages where it turns going to the engine block.
The passage size is roughly 3/8th of an inch, roughly 1/2 the size of a factory cast iron housing.
You can barely get your pinkie finger into the lower water passages through the center hole where the water pump bolts on.
Waaay to small.

No amount of grinding with a carbide bit would ever be able to get the passages to the size of a factory housing. You would grind through the wall long before it was larger enough.

On a mild stock type engine they might work okay, but on a stroker motor like mine it would never let it flow enough.

The factory cast iron housing passages are large and roughly 5/8th of an inch. You can easily put any finger into the passage from the front with room to spare.

The new 440 Source housing passages are roughly 9/16th of an inch in size. A tiny bit smaller than the cast iron housing but waaay larger that the earlier versions.

I used a carbide bit to open it up a bit and smooth the corners of the passages.
By he time I was done it should flow the same as a factory housing.

What may be kind of humorous is I asked 440 Source about the earlier restrictive housings and I was told that only one passage was too small and restrictive. Not two passages like I was telling them.

Both lower passages on the early version are about 1/2 the size of the new version from 440 Source.

I just checked my "blem" again & one side is somewhat restricted and the other side is severely restricted! I'm definitely gonna have to go in the side & grind (& measure wall thickness) then plug the opening with (likely) a 1/2 NPT plug

You guys seem to believe that water flows like toothpaste out of a tube. It doesn't. It's a liquid, not a semi-liquid. The pump gives energy to the water, and the energy can be in the form of pressure or velocity (or temperature for that matter). This energy changes from pressure to velocity when the flow encounters a smaller cross-section, and changes from velocity to pressure when the cross-section increases.

But there's no free lunch. The restriction costs some energy, and a lot of that loss is from the sudden change in cross-section, both entrance and exit. So the best way to use those housings with the restrictions is to make the restrictions as large as you safely can, then make gradual transitions to the larger sizes both upstream and downstream of the restriction itself. Think venturi-like shapes.

On to heat load: If you're not using the extra horsepower your stroker is capable of, the power being generated is the same. The amount of heat rejected into the coolant COULD increase by the proportional increase in cylinder wall area, except that most of the heat comes from the head. The extra surface uncovered by the piston is at the bottom of the water jacket, and that's where temperatures are lowest. Also there's the extra friction caused by the longer stroke, meaning both longer piston travel and faster piston speeds.

It is my educated guess that the extra heat load from your stroker is no more than proportional to the displacement increase, and probably less. If you increased the compression ratio and increased thermal efficiency it may be quite a bit lower than directly proportional.

What this means is that a stroker doesn't necessarily reject a lot more heat into the coolant than the engine from which it was derived.

R.

Not true, the exterior dimensions are virtually identical therefore you could potentially grind the passages to the factory size. BUT, having done this, I can tell you that you're better off buying a housing with large passages in the first place. Its extremely difficult to get into the angles of the passages and you'd end up spending more on a selection of bits that you will on the proper housing.

OMG! i get that and

Incorrect/wrong, the exterior of the earlier housing are smaller/different that a factory cast iron housing.
The factory cast iron housing is rounder out further or cast larger in that area of the housing.

The housings were designed to bolt on and have all the machined areas in the proper locations, but they are cast different.
There's no mistaking them for a factory casting of any kind.

I'll have to take pics and post them showing the differences.

Yes, you better do that.

On the 440Source casting I had (about 5 years ago) I hogged it out enough to easily get my thumb in and never came close to breaking through the walls. The toughest part to grind is the slotted opening to the impeller and that's virtually impossible but the rest was no problem with a selection of cutters.

I understand that an engine stock ci or stroker is going to build more heat when under max load and building the most HP.
Building HP creates heat, pretty simple.

You're not going to convince me that putting a flow restriction by reducing the size of a port in 1/2 (two in this case) isn't going to reduce heat transfer (from the block to the coolant and then to the radiator).
If the flow is restricted then the transfer isn't going to happen like it should.

In my case the radiator is at 155 degrees, the block is at 230+ degrees in warm weather.
The heat isn't getting pulled out of the block more than likely because the flow is restricted.
It's an 11-1 compression street build 572 Hemi with aluminum heads, nothing that radical.
4 core 26 inch Champion aluminum radiator.
Even with the thermostat out you can barely see the coolant flow in the radiator.

The only thing that hasn't been changed to fix it has been the housing.
Once it's all back together I'll know for sure if that was the problem.

If there wasn't a problem, why did 440 Source retool a new version with larger passages?

Everything 440Source sells gets a bad rap here because its made in China ... doesn't matter that the quality is pretty damn good for the price and that the majority of stuff will easily survive the intended purpose. Likewise with their pump housings. Someone took a look in one and noticed the difference in passage sizes and it went viral from there. Despite a number of people using the housings with absolutely no detrimental affect, the vocal majority prevailed. So if you're 440Source, what do you do? On your next production run you cave to the whining loudmouth schmucks.

I'm glad you don't want me to convince you, I give up. You choose to ignore fluid dynamics, that's your loss, not mine. And don't bother to snark back, I really couldn't care less what you think.

Why did they retool? To make a better product. Simple.

Just because I said it could be made to work doesn't mean I think there isn't some optimization that should be done. And to 440Source's credit, they did.

R.

I'm thinking the OP is asking about the WATER PUMP.

Yet you snark back with your reply.

I didn't know that anything in my reply was "snarky".

If you took it that way, that's on you.

I was simply stating the facts as I saw them.

It's seems pretty simple if you want more flow volume without raising the pressure you increase the size of the passage and have a pump that can handle the flow..

Here are some pics showing the size difference.

The difference isn't on the front side, it's on the back where it faces the engine block.

Side by side of older 440 Source and a factory cart iron.


Measuring the cast iron one.


Measuring the older 440 Source before adjusting the caliper.


Measuring after adjusting the caliper.


I don't see any way to grind that one out to have the same size passage as a factory one.

I still need to take pics of the new 440 Source version.

Sputnik, good pics/measurements/info. After all this what I'm gonna do is measure/hog out my blem/break it in with the iron housing/iron pump/then swap on the alum housing then the alum scroll ("source") pump (one at a time) & keep an eye on what changes (hopefully nothing) on the water temps

if he starts up another thread about the housing,
i wonder if will he get the answer he wants?

Buy the Mopar one

I bought the Milodon aluminum pump. It sat in the house for a year or two before I installed it. The pump leaked. It had been so long since I bought it I didn't try to have it warrantied.

I've never heard of any bad water pumps. Some work better than others and some are lot more expensive than others. Go to Summit and look at all of the water pumps for BB Mopar engines. I think there are 9 ranging from $35 to $250. If it was me I'd buy two of the $35 pumps and call it good. If the first one didn't work I'd swap in the second one. If the first one worked then I'd drive it until it leaked and then swap in the the other one.

This summer I took out the old edelbrock "high flow" pump and put in a aluminum GMB that I got for $20 from Amazon to see if it cooled the same or any worse or better than the expensive eddy pump. No change and used a superformance gasket with no silicone and no leaks or anything....Cools just as good as the edelbrock. 'Net research shows that the milodon pump is repackaged GMB. There's a standard flow and a high flow. The high flow has the anti cavitation plate. Standard ranges from $20-30. High flow ranges from 40-50. Rich Ehrenberg sells something similar on ebay too for 40 + shipping.

I bought the expensive Edelbrock pump a few years ago because I figured the expensive stuff must be the good stuff. It seized up after very few miles. I bought the el cheapo replacement aluminum water pump (probably a repacked GMB) and it worked just fine.