One for the experts. I bought this engine with inclined quad manifolds for Weber or Dellorto carbs many years ago. The manifolds had no rear water connection pipes, so the water channels were blocked by the manifolds. No problem at all, the MGB ran without any heat problems by the former owner. The engine got a rebuild by myself and new manifolds that are horizontal because my engine and gearbox are level to the chassis.
Question: is it not better to connect the waterpump pipe with the rear pipes of the manifolds to get cool water to that area too? Right now they are blocked too but I want to mount the engine this winter and was thinking about the water flowing ways of this engine again.
Hi Michael,
The rover v8 cooling system is not designed with head connections at the rear. This is because the designed flow is as follows.
-Into the block at the front from the pump.
-Through the block.
-Out of the block and into the heads at the rear.
-Through the heads to the front.
-Out of the heads and into the inlet manifold.
-Out through thermostat and into the rad.
If you connect to the heads at the rear of the manifold then you will reduce flow through the heads which will upset the original design and head cooling. Also the coolant at the rear of the heads is not as hot as at the front.
You don't seem to have any bypass pipe at present so there wont be any flow to the rear of the stat when it is closed. You might get away with drilling a small hole in the thermostat to permit some initial flow.
Regards Denis
1950 A40 Devon Hotrod with 5.0 twin turbo RV8.
EDIS8 wasted spark, Holley Injection.
Been as far as the Moon and back in 57 years of driving. Same Car, 5 engine upgrades !!!
