Mark, Scott or any other resident ME's:
I'm looking for anyone who has a rig to test engine water pumps. If I can't find anyone who provides the service, then I'll build one to pressure & flow test my 550's water pump in order to see a couple of things:
1. Flow & pressure at different RPM's and with different impellers. (I'm particularly interested in flow at an idle RPM, since that's when our V12's like to overheat.)
2. Power consumption
It would probably comprise a variable speed electric motor with an overdrive pulley for the pump so I could spin it at least as fast as the OEM drive setup (116mm crank pulley with 103mm pump pulley) so 1.13 x engine RPM.
I'd need to recirculate the water (probably would use backyard swimming pool
) and would want to be able to vary the discharge backpressure and measure pressure & flow at different RPM's.
These little Sotera flowmeters aren't too expensive, and I'd probably put two of them in parallel to be able to measure up to 60 GPM:
http://sotera.com/index.cfm/products/pr ... 507&ps=132Power measurement would be by a wattmeter on the motor, and I'd have to get some efficiency curves from the motor manufacturer to convert to shaft HP.
I wouldn't be able to duplicate the NPSH that the pump would have when mounted on the engine, in the car, but am hoping this difference wouldn't make a significant change in the figures.
Thoughts?