[EspritNOOB]

Followed Maxvelocity's lead/recommendation and replaced the impeller on my charge cooler. The teeth were falling off in my hand! Every single tooth/spline were bent and turned. Hilarious! Thanks Cal for putting that bug in my head!

HUGE difference in power. If you guys have not done it yet, do so. :facepalm:UK:

 

[Type82]

The impeller is a vey weak link in the charge cooling system. Hat's off to Calvin for helping you solve the problem, he knows his Esprits well :up:

Robert

 

[S4Denver]

Change to electric pump, you will just be replacing the OEM again in a year or .

 

[s2kseven]

...one reason i went for air to air in my v8 -- nothing will go wrong.
maybe the only esprit v8 in the world with air to air....lol:

 

[EspritNOOB]

...one reason i went for air to air in my v8 -- nothing will go wrong.
maybe the only esprit v8 in the world with air to air....lol:

Interesting any photos please? I will assume that your trunk is now gone?

 

[carbuff]

Wait, I though they ALL were supposed to look like that! rotfl

 

[s2kseven]

Interesting any photos please? I will assume that your trunk is now gone?

PM sent

 

[EspritNOOB]

Wait, I though they ALL were supposed to look like that! rotfl

It was like a piece of chewing gum.

 

[EspritNOOB]

PM sent

I see nada in my mail box. Very curious to see how you did it. Saw photos from the gentleman in Thailand but have not really seen the finished product.

What made you go the air to air route other than ease of maintenance?

 

[mpesik]

Hi.
Question: looking at the design of the vanes of the impellor they look as if the impellor blades expand upon more rpm's. That is centrifical force.
Some thing like a centrifical clutch but only with shoes. Yes?
I remember reading years ago about making turbo chargers more efficient this way. Although the blades pivoted up on high rpm.

 

[carbuff]

Hi.
Question: looking at the design of the vanes of the impellor they look as if the impellor blades expand upon more rpm's. .

You a Lotus engineer? :UK:


The flexible plastic impeller blades allow a tight seal against the inside of the housing without precision machining. :coolnana:


Until they disintegrate... :sad:



If I owned a Chargecooled Esprit I'd fit an electric pump, for sure!

Anybody (Travis?) have a pic of a NEW impeller?

 

[EspritNOOB]

Hi.
Question: looking at the design of the vanes of the impellor they look as if the impellor blades expand upon more rpm's. That is centrifical force.
Some thing like a centrifical clutch but only with shoes. Yes?
I remember reading years ago about making turbo chargers more efficient this way. Although the blades pivoted up on high rpm.

They are rubber but they do not "expand" as they spin. This is also used on boat engines to bring in fresh water to cool. So no not like centrifugal clutches.

 

[EspritNOOB]

Here you go Mike.

 

[maxvelocity]

Good for you Noob. You have the added hang time of full boost as your car was intended to have. A properly running Esprit is absolutely great and all it takes is a little bit of extra effort. Some people will never know how a properly sorted Esprit feels like.

Around 2002-04 years we seriously looked at the impellers and tried to find improved or stronger ones. We found the pumps heads and impellers on our cars were of the type common in bilge pumps. It sort of made sense because Lotus did some work on boats and there were stories of Chapman going boating with Andretti and Fittipaldi. The mechanical pumps do a fair job at cooling. We figured for general use short duration they were intended for they were fine. When JW made the electric pumps popular with his kit I considered changing over but being the thrifty person I am I went just with a plain rebuild for $20 at the time. I think the impellers last around 7 yrs and + 20 something K miles. In the ball park as C service and the T belt change for the old B type red letter T belt so add that to the list.. The impeller seem to last longer in warmer climates. The reasoning being we could not tell the difference from the Jabsco and Johnson bilge pump impellers from the ones used in chargecooler pumps. Bilge pumps were never intended to spin in near freezing engine coolant like the Esprit's that fire up in winter. With some discussion with Tim Engel, I opted to refrain from my occasional starting of the Esprit in winter as a properly winter stored Esprit should hibernate with the battery maintainer. Because of our northern location it maybe more harmful to do the occasional winter starts. (winter storage, not long term storage) I often wondered if it accelerated the cracking of the older series A exhaust manifold. I currently have the updated series C manifold which were used in later cars and purportedly crack resistant.

 

[Vulcan Grey]

I guess I only have this photo.

My housing was bored out a bit and nickel plated to reduce the friction and attempt to improve the lifetime of the pump... I still only got 9k at best out of it, so I went electric.

 

[QuadCam]

there are others, but in the last year, I did a pretty thorough writeup on converting to an electric chargecooler pump. Search for threads started by me and you should find it. There really isn't a good reason to stick with the factory chargecooler pump. OEMs today all use electric pumps for their air-water intercoolers...... GM, Ford, and Mercedes all come to mind.

 

[maxvelocity]

On the next go around I will be switching to the Bosch intercooler pump that is popular with the Ford and GM cars. The pump prices has had a price drop because of the common intercooler usage since the early turbo years 20+ years ago. They appear to running around 80-100 USD. In the early years we were concerned about the added current draw of our already crappy alternator and the later cars also using power for the electric vac pump and entertainment systems. But I am most likely going with a 110A alternator next go around also to help power on board electronics

 

[mpesik]

Here you go Mike.

Thanks for the pic. That explains a lot......
-someone at the factory installed the wrong impellor.

 

[mpesik]

Seriously though.
Sorry for your misfortune but you caught it.
Thanks to this Thread I am a bit smarter.