How to best modify upper thermostat housing?

[soldave]

OK, with my turbo still in transit (apparently the last pack donkey the strapped it to and pushed into the Pacific on it's way to Japan drowned somewhere off the coast of Hawaii, so it's still in transit) I am left to look at the engine bay of my Evo III and try to work things out in my head. One problem are I know I'm going to have is the upper thermostat housing (of which I'm using a 1G version... or possibly 2G... a DSM one anyway). Take a look:

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Am almost certain this radiator hose outlet is going to go straight into my turbo's compressor housing (top-mount plus a HX40), and so is going to have to be rerouted somehow. The question is, how to modify it so that I can route a radiator hose into there?

Knowledgeable folks... over to you!

 

[nitroazz]

That tstat housing looks different than my 2g one. My overflow port is on the passenger side of the housing.

Anyways, One option if you want to keep the housing, is to shorten it and put an "an" fitting onto it. That way you can use a 90* an fitting to re-route the upper hose.

Another option would be to custom that one so that it works, or use a flange and build one up.

Others will chime in soon but that would be my idea.

 

[tkrPerformance]

I cut and had my buddy weld it back together to clear

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[soldave]

That tstat housing looks different than my 2g one. My overflow port is on the passenger side of the housing.

Anyways, One option if you want to keep the housing, is to shorten it and put an "an" fitting onto it. That way you can use a 90* an fitting to re-route the upper hose.

Another option would be to custom that one so that it works, or use a flange and build one up.

Others will chime in soon but that would be my idea.

Thanks for the thoughts An AN fitting is a possibility although I think I'd be looking at a biblical-sized -20 o -24 fitting.

I cut and had my buddy weld it back together to clear

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Right. That might be just what I need to do. So you just cut out the blanked port that you can see above the backside bolt hole on the upper housing (did that make any sense at all?) so you could still bolt it up?

Gives me a good idea on what I should be aiming to do.

 

[nitroazz]

I was told that the size to go with would be -20.

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This is what STM did/does.

 

[tkrPerformance]

the port was cut out and welded shut when it was moved. It is the stock evo t-stat housing with a 1g and 2g top neck welded together.

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[STM tuned]

When we weld AN Fittings [ like on Eddy's White 2G and for Evos ] we typically use -12AN Fittings and line.

-Brian Gleason
STM | STREET TUNED MOTORSPORTS | DSM | EVO | SUBARU | PERFORMANCE & DYNO TUNING

 

[soldave]

-12? Isn;'t that a hell of a step down from the regular cooling lines (you're going from 1 1/4-1 1/2" down to 1/2")

 

[Sirnixalot]

Dave just for reference i am using -16AN on my setup and that's 1" ID, its about a quarter to third inch step down from the stock ID. I wouldn't go any smaller than -16AN but i don't have any evidence or technical reasons for saying that. The only reason i went to -AN fittings (other than the cool factor) is because i didn't want to have to spend hours at the local parts place counter matching hoses and making adapters to go from the 1.25" ports on the AFCO radiator to the 1.4" ports on the t-stat housing.

 

[soldave]

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't want to go smaller than -16AN to be honest, and would prefer staying with the original size.

 

[nitroazz]

When we weld AN Fittings [ like on Eddy's White 2G and for Evos ] we typically use -12AN Fittings and line.

-Brian Gleason
STM | STREET TUNED MOTORSPORTS | DSM | EVO | SUBARU | PERFORMANCE & DYNO TUNING

Why would you go that small? Is there any reason behind it?

I would go minimum of -16, but will go -20 when I redo my setup shortly.

 

[STM tuned]

I believe Cory [ eviltsi ] has -16AN on his 2G, but we use -12AN on pretty much every Evo/DSM AN Radiator setup we do here. We did it that way on RICER with no issues, and every car we have done it on since doesn't have any cooling issues either. Most of the time we are only running Half Radiators on the Evo and 2G Builds.

-Brian Gleason
STM | STREET TUNED MOTORSPORTS | DSM | EVO | SUBARU | PERFORMANCE & DYNO TUNING