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I dont go to the quarter mile or have ET times or trap speeds, so its hard for me to know, but I do drive the car hard and take it up beyond 150 frequently. I can "sense" when the car has less power, when the car pulls timing etc, but don't have any data on this.
As far as a limp mode is concerned, I have never had a limp mode from this problem or a CEL from this problem, my limp modes came from something unrelated, which I have a firm grasp on.
IF the pump is shutting down on me, which I have to assume it is from time to time, as EVEN others who do have the pump top feed gravity aux tanks have said that they have logged the pump still going into cavitation with those "fixed" setups...
And i have recently learned of someone melting their bricks in an aftermarket blower during the 3 min shutdown with a "fixed" setup...
So I am trying to learn how to completely PREVENT this 3 min shut down, or how to REDUCE THE TIME of the 3 min shutdown down to 10 seconds or less, before I pull the trigger on a 2.9 whipple setup... otherwise, I feel I will be throwing money away and playing russian roulette with my engine... since the cooling bricks debris goes straight down to the intake valves, etc.
As a side note, i have had a lot of air return into my system since i purged it 10 days ago.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the pump motor shutting off due to cavitation. G Speed did their test and confirmed the pump did shut down but they did that by introducing air to the pump. Has anybody verified the pump is experiencing cavitation when no air is introduced to its input? If they have I haven't seen any statements about that. It seems to me the first thing to do is to verify that once most of the air is out of the reservoir the pump should be checked to see if it is cavitating and shutting down. I think the most expeditious way of doing that is to monitor the current flow of the pump electrical circuit. That would show the pump shutting down and how long it shuts down during normal operation. The pump supply circuit is fed by a 15 amp fuse (F38UA) in the under hood electrical center. The circuit is number 2022 and the wiring is VT/WH (violet with white stripe) it goes from the fuse block to a junction block where the circuit is divided into two parallel paths. One feeds the pump motor and the other feeds the pump logic circuits. The main feed will always show some current flow since it feeds both the motor and the logic but there should be a huge difference between what might be a less than one amp draw for the logic and the higher current flow required for the pump motor. On other side of the junction block the line leading to the pump motor should drop to zero current if the pump is shut down due to cavitation.
The other way to monitor this would be to monitor charge air temperature as it enters the intake manifold. G Speed indicated that temperature would increase from the 140 range to over 200 degrees if the pump shuts down for 3 minutes. I am not saying it doesn't shut down but it seems like a good idea to verify that it is before developing solutions to prevent it. Getting introduced air out of the system is much easier than solving a plumbing issue.
i know what you are saying, but at the same token, I know how much NEW air my system made in 10 days time... after i pulled hard vac and the system should have stayed bled if you think about it.
So, I am trying to learn what the real answer to this puzzle is, and since these pumps are only 200 bucks, its something that I think is well worth the investment to understand how they work. I am hoping I can come across a good deal on a used one somewhere, the top feed pump that is.
If my next car was NOT getting a whipple 2.9 then it would be a different story... but it is... so for me, this all needs to be solved... because melted cooling bricks equal metal and coolant through the intake valves of my engine...
This is not something I will be reactive instead of proactive to solve.
As you mention bill, a thermometer reporting intake air temps or blower temp, is something that I already know I am going to be running and displaying inside the car at all times.
So maybe I didn't do well in physics... But if you get most of the dissolved air out of a sealed system... How can you create more air? Cavitation bubbles should dissolve back into the fluid, right?
So maybe I didn't do well in physics... But if you get most of the dissolved air out of a sealed system... How can you create more air? Cavitation bibbles should dissolve back into the fluid, right?
yes and no... if you are getting the fluid to high enough temps, the air may remain.
and top feed aux tank equals no warranty, and I have to keep the warranty on this car and keep it bone stock since I am turning it back into GM soon. in the meantime, I don't want to sit still and do nothing. I want to learn what is going on here, and there are a lot of unanswered questions still, imo
I will be interested to get Tadge's input on that... After all those posts and complains about the Z06 overheating, and 'final' GM's mitigation solution to add a second radiator to the M7, but none for the A8, if adding a $200 pump will have helped, I am pretty sure that GM will have done that or at least proposed it, don't you agree?
I will be interested to get Tadge's input on that... After all those posts and complains about the Z06 overheating, and 'final' GM's mitigation solution to add a second radiator to the M7, but none for the A8, if adding a $200 pump will have helped, I am pretty sure that GM will have done that or at least proposed it, don't you agree?
yes and no... they did do it on the zr1, and it costs 40g more and they sell at full sticker, or above. So... one option you make a lot more money, second option, you pay out a ton of money for every z06 on the planet...
if im GM, i like option 1. They did solve it. They just made a big deal out of it and charged 40g more for it and 100 more HP and a better looking front fascia and more heat exchangers. Dont forget the wing
I really feel this top feed pump in addition to a second pump, is a key to their secret sauce on the zr1, and they dont want people to understand how cheap or simple it is to fix, or every z06 owner would be DEMANDING gm do it for their z06. By us not understanding it.... we are not demanding it. We are blinded by 7 heat exchangers, which, btw, if you are going to add heat exchangers like gspeed or LG or katech tixxt (or however you spell it).... there better be a second pump put on the system.... if its my car. The single one is already experiencing cavitation on the bone stock z06.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say... if the blower doesn't experience times of coolant shutdown... then the engine as a whole does not overheat and put the car into limp mode, in 90% of the instances that it currently does go into limp mode. THAT is how big of a deal this is.
I have a Granatelli tank and it serves my purpose well being a drag racer. Just wondering; Bill has found a solution to his misfiring issue with the superbleed technique following the dealer's recommendation. I know there aren't very many others on this forum that tax their cars at the limit more than Bill has on the racecourse. If Bill currently has no problems, why does the Z06 intercooler system need two pumps and/or additional cooling mods for the track?
i dont know why my system regains air and Bill's does not... but here is the thing... my stock res has the same amount of air in it as Bill's, but the cooling bricks re-gained air over a 10 day stretch. While i dont want to contradict Bill, I believe it is only a matter of time until he realizes his car does have air back in the bricks, and air returned. For now, I am glad he is having great luck.
I am not... and as stated earlier, my goal is to make a car bullet proof in the regards of... i do not want there to be any possibility that my coolant to my blower is shut off for 3 min. On the stock cars, it may not be the end of the world, but on tuned cars with whipple 2.9 making 1000whp, its a very big deal, as these setups create enough blower heat to melt the cooling bricks when driven hard AND the pump shuts down for 3 min. Keep in mind, on a whipple, its going to heat the fluid to higher temps than an lt4 stock blower. The closer fluid is to boiling in temp, the easier it is for the pumps impeller to cause cavitation in the fluid and shut itself down.
I am looking at 2 pumps to reduce the work on either impeller, and hopefully also create a redundancy so that IF one shuts down, the other is still on, at least for a PORTION of the 3 minutes. I think odds of them shutting off within 30 seconds of each other is going to be pretty rare. Now my window went from 3 min to 2 min and 30 seconds.
Meanwhile, i do know of some people who run 185 for 20 to 40 miles at a stretch, WOT, and i do not believe that these cars with a whipple 2.9 will endure this situation without blowing a motor as the cooling bricks literally burst, and metal fragments and coolant from the brick, enter the intake valve and chamber.
THIS is why I am doing to research now, because IF i dont find a solution I am satisfied with, guess what I am not going to buy? a 2.9. For most guys, life is fine and they dont drive cars hard enough.
This is a video taken from another thread and another individual than myself, which illustrates people in south florida driving at WOT for long sustained distances. I dont want to have to buy a new motor, should i ever find myself going over 10 miles at WOT and my pump is off for 3 min, which means it is off 9 of 10 of those miles. Follow me?
i dont know why my system regains air and Bill's does not... but here is the thing... my stock res has the same amount of air in it as Bill's, but the cooling bricks re-gained air over a 10 day stretch. While i dont want to contradict Bill, I believe it is only a matter of time until he realizes his car does have air back in the bricks, and air returned. For now, I am glad he is having great luck.
I am not... and as stated earlier, my goal is to make a car bullet proof in the regards of... i do not want there to be any possibility that my coolant to my blower is shut off for 3 min. On the stock cars, it may not be the end of the world, but on tuned cars with whipple 2.9 making 1000whp, its a very big deal, as these setups create enough blower heat to melt the cooling bricks when driven hard AND the pump shuts down for 3 min. Keep in mind, on a whipple, its going to heat the fluid to higher temps than an lt4 stock blower. The closer fluid is to boiling in temp, the easier it is for the pumps impeller to cause cavitation in the fluid and shut itself down.
I am looking at 2 pumps to reduce the work on either impeller, and hopefully also create a redundancy so that IF one shuts down, the other is still on, at least for a PORTION of the 3 minutes. I think odds of them shutting off within 30 seconds of each other is going to be pretty rare. Now my window went from 3 min to 2 min and 30 seconds.
Meanwhile, i do know of some people who run 185 for 20 to 40 miles at a stretch, WOT, and i do not believe that these cars with a whipple 2.9 will endure this situation without blowing a motor as the cooling bricks literally burst, and metal fragments and coolant from the brick, enter the intake valve and chamber.
THIS is why I am doing to research now, because IF i dont find a solution I am satisfied with, guess what I am not going to buy? a 2.9. For most guys, life is fine and they dont drive cars hard enough.
This is a video taken from another thread and another individual than myself, which illustrates people in south florida driving at WOT for long sustained distances. I dont want to have to buy a new motor, should i ever find myself going over 10 miles at WOT and my pump is off for 3 min, which means it is off 9 of 10 of those miles. Follow me?
I installed a simple temperature sensor in my Granatelli tank which tells me exactly what the temperature of my intercooler coolant is. It 's great for keeping track of icing down the system at the track. Something like this might be helpful on the roadcourse to keep track of intercooler coolant temps.
I installed a simple temperature sensor in my Granatelli tank which tells me exactly what the temperature of my intercooler coolant is. It 's great for keeping track of icing down the system at the track. Something like this might be helpful on the roadcourse to keep track of intercooler coolant temps.
Just one problem...
When the pump shuts off, there is no more hot coolant from the blower coming into your res tank, the hot fluid sits still in the blower and gets hotter, and the res tank stays the same... might even get cooler... since the res tank is DIRECTLY DOWNSTREAM of the blower...
...IF a person gravity feeds the stock pump, with the aux tank on the drivers side, and runs the circulation loop backwards, as GSpeed and so many others do... and as I would do, if i had an aux tank.
...or IF a person runs the loop in the normal stock direction, and the tank is BEFORE the blower perhaps... and AFTER the intercooler in the nose of the car... i still believe the temps in the tank would fall.
So your temp meter is NOT showing the shutdowns, and if it is, it wont be alarming enough to alert me, the driver, and it will ALWAYS be less noticeable than the moment the pump comes back on, and sends super hot water from the blower, down to the tank... then it will blip up in temp... once its too late and the 3 minute shutdown event is already over.. IF it even blips up much, as by then, the tank is probably much cooler than it normally is as it has had 3 minutes to cool off with zero hot fluid coming its way, so new super hot fluid might just bring it back up to normal temp really quick, and then the front intercooler is back doing its job, so the tank never rises in temp really.
A lot of people are saying they are confident that their pumps are not shutting off.. i still have yet to see any of these people prove to me they have the means to properly measure/detect the event.
Not trying to be a debbie downer... but if I am not drag racing and putting ice in that tank, i see almost no point at all for the gauge, and even then im not convinced it is doing anything.... Think about this... if the pump shuts down, and i have ice in my tank... my tank is going to read nice and cold, while im siting there at the starting line. I have no idea my pump is off. None. Instead, i have a false sense of awareness, that my system is cold... when the blower was hot as hell.
a temp sensor on the end of a dead end hose, which T's in right at the pump inlet or exit port... would be the simplest way to get any indication that the blower was raising in temp relative to what it normally runs... both from ambient heat from the blower, if this hose was draped along side the blower and on top of the fuel rail, and also heat transfer through the fluid from the blower, at the base of the dead end line. I would put the temp sensor towards the bottom of the dead end line, and leave the bleed port on the other end of rubber hose.
This is why I am playing with dead end rubber hoses on T's since i have to keep my car stock and I can't drill a port into the blower to read air temps. On my next car with the whipple, i will port in a temperature sensor somewhere... if i even get the 2.9. Might just end up with turbos... or just leave it stock and play the lemon law game again until the turbo cars are out from GM.
I have a Granatelli tank and it serves my purpose well being a drag racer. Just wondering; Bill has found a solution to his misfiring issue with the superbleed technique following the dealer's recommendation. I know there aren't very many others on this forum that tax their cars at the limit more than Bill has on the racecourse. If Bill currently has no problems, why does the Z06 intercooler system need two pumps and/or additional cooling mods for the track?
as far as Bill's situation goes... again.. lets think for a minute...
Bill isn't overheating his car, he has a bigger radiator..
Bill's problem is a RARE misfire in one, maybe 2 cylinders.
We dont even know that the pump shutting down... even causes his problem, and I dont believe the pump shutting off does cause his problem, and here is why....
It could be that EVEN WHEN the pump is running fine, and the air gets trapped up in the back of the bricks and messes up those 2 cylinders ability to be kept cool, at the back of the motor where, his rear 2 cylinders are having pre-detonation/knock.
My point to all of this is... the pump shutting off, causes the entire engine to get hot, not just the back 2 cylinders... so now the engine is hot... now it pulls timing and closes TB position from 100% down to 80% or whatever it does...
And those stock GM ECU programmed precautions PREVENT pre-detonation/knock on ALL of the cylinders. Thats why GM does it, and has these programs to limit power when it sees too much heat. Bill wont get predetonation at these times if there is NO AIR TRAPPED, and instead COOLING FLUID also in the BACK of his cooling bricks as all cylinders are then being cooled equally to where the ECU can make adjustments to prevent the pre-Detonation...
Bill sees no code, he just sees hes warm if the pump shuts off. He doesn't KNOW his pump shut off. None of us do. The pump shutting off is not causing his detonation of 2 cylinders in the back of his engine...
All that he KNOWS is that the back 2 cylinders are no longer getting pre-detonation and throwing strange codes...
And again... that has nothing to do with the pump shutting off and the entire system getting hot... it has to do with 1 or 2 cylinders running hotter than the other 6, to where the computer fails to notice it needs to pull timing and pull TB down from 100% opening, as the other 6 cylinders are cooler, and the back 2 are hotter, because of air in the bricks... and the geometry of the 15/16 year's systems. Take a hard look at the whipple 2.9, and youll see that the bricks going back far is why they have to cut the cowl. The 17/18/19 bricks are tilted... so that... they can clear the cowl up top, but get more air to the back 2 cylinders at the bottom of the bricks. That is WHY they are tilted guys.
You see what im saying?
Just because Bill is no longer throwing a RARE code of his back 2 cylinders misfiring.... does not mean that his pump is staying on 100% of the time and not still being shut down for 3 min at a time.
When the pump shuts off, there is no more hot coolant from the blower coming into your res tank, the hot fluid sits still in the blower and gets hotter, and the res tank stays the same... might even get cooler... since the res tank is DIRECTLY DOWNSTREAM of the blower...
...IF a person gravity feeds the stock pump, with the aux tank on the drivers side, and runs the circulation loop backwards, as GSpeed and so many others do... and as I would do, if i had an aux tank.
...or IF a person runs the loop in the normal stock direction, and the tank is BEFORE the blower perhaps... and AFTER the intercooler in the nose of the car... i still believe the temps in the tank would fall.
So your temp meter is NOT showing the shutdowns, and if it is, it wont be alarming enough to alert me, the driver, and it will ALWAYS be less noticeable than the moment the pump comes back on, and sends super hot water from the blower, down to the tank... then it will blip up in temp... once its too late and the 3 minute shutdown event is already over.. IF it even blips up much, as by then, the tank is probably much cooler than it normally is as it has had 3 minutes to cool off with zero hot fluid coming its way, so new super hot fluid might just bring it back up to normal temp really quick, and then the front intercooler is back doing its job, so the tank never rises in temp really.
A lot of people are saying they are confident that their pumps are not shutting off.. i still have yet to see any of these people prove to me they have the means to properly measure/detect the event.
Not trying to be a debbie downer... but if I am not drag racing and putting ice in that tank, i see almost no point at all for the gauge, and even then im not convinced it is doing anything.... Think about this... if the pump shuts down, and i have ice in my tank... my tank is going to read nice and cold, while im siting there at the starting line. I have no idea my pump is off. None. Instead, i have a false sense of awareness, that my system is cold... when the blower was hot as hell.
Again, I do ice my tank at the strip and it works great for my situation. I understand what you are saying, that the temperature gauge will not show an increase during possible pump shutdown. However (if it does occur) when the pump resets the temperature will spike a massive number of degrees in a few seconds and would be easy to monitor. It would occur at the same time or right after an ignition misfire event as in Bill's situation or a general loss of power. If the engine does lose power for an unknown reason, a watchful eye on the gauge could help diagnose the culprit, again, assuming that shutdown does happen. In Bill's case, just hot intercooler temperature due to air caused his misfire and monitoring the coolant temperature gauge could have given him more insight on his engine's condition.
I wish I was as far up on the driver skill axis as the chart indicates. Lou is at least triple my skill level and I know for sure Poor-Sha is far above me as well.
Thinking outside the box. I may be way out of line here as I do not own a ZO6, but did work for many years in industrial electrical maintenance. Many motors have an inline bimetal thermostat that will break the current to the brushes if the motor temperature set point is exceeded. This will then reset and allow the motor to restart when the temperature drops below the trip point. From my experience with this type of failure the cycle times can be amazingly consistent. If the pump can be disassembled it might shed some light as to whether there is such a protection device. Also sometimes there are wires to the exterior of the motor that allow bypassing the thermal device. Perhaps the extra connections noted on the plug might offer a way to go around the thermal protector if there is indeed one inside. Thermal protection devices are cheap and easy to incorporate so maybe rather than an exotic PWM or electronic sensor this might be something to look for. If it were on my bench I would ohm out the normal power leads and then leave one test lead in position and ohm the other connections. If you get an identical reading on another lead this might be the one that bypasses the thermal device and allows direct connection to the motor. Simple solutions that are cheaper from a manufacturing standpoint are often incorporated versus complex ones that add expense. I admit to not reading every post in this very long thread but did follow those by the OP and did not see mention of pump disassembly. Might it be worth a look?
FWIW, I have interest in owning a ZO6 in the future myself.
That is essentially what I was trying to say previously. May have been in another thread. I was thinking either a temperature trip or over amp trip that has a time delay using a relay or something. The cavitation would cause either of those trips.
07-27-2018, 12:43 PM
