probably heard about the lake in your garage...

 

The thermostat must go in the back of the head because it needs to pressurize the coolant. The flow of coolant dictates where the thermostat is placed. Since the flow of cooled coolant enters the engine from the lower radiator hose at the lower housing and exits out the back of the head it needs the thermostat at the point of exit for flow control and proper pressurization to avoid hot spots in the head and block.

If the thermostat is kept in the front of the engine, the rear part of the head/block would tend to run hotter from the lack of flow.

If I get a chance, I will post my reverse-flow/electric pump setup.

 

Someone around you likely had a big feed recently. One or two always seem to escape when you get home and unload your catch. It's likely dead and stinking somewhere now. They'll last a day or two out of water, longer if they find a cool spot. We do 2 or 3 big feeds a year. Here it has to be mid to late summer when the water starts warming up. The tail and claw meat is the best shellfish you'll ever have when they are done fresh.


Thanks for the fantastic write up. I've got my box of goodies just waiting to go in. Your intructions and misfires make this a whole lot easier for me to tackle. I hate to think how much time and effort you've saved me over the last couple years. Let me know where I should mail some of our fine NW microbrews to!

And just in case you hadn't figured it out yet. The spacer is grooved on both sides so you actually have 4 positions the coolant sensor can be rotated to as it's 45'd to the bolt positions, not 90'd.

 

It's threads like this that make me feel better about not buying from BEGI. It seems like every review I see mentions missing parts, wrong parts, bad welds, etc. etc.

 

He's not talking about leaving it at the front. He just means to put a big outlet at the back, but rather than placing the thermostat inside that outlet as I did, put it in a housing which is between that outlet and the radiator inlet.

This is the way that M-tuned does it. It accomplishes effectively the same thing insofar as maintaining a restriction to ensure a pressure differential within the system, however my concern with that design is that, as Sav said, it puts the thermostat at some remove from the primary flow of hot water and introduces the potential for the operation of the thermostat to lag behind peak temperature somewhat.

This is one reason why I chose Bell's design over M-tuned's, despite the fact that the latter is likely easier to install owing to the shorter stack in the back.

 

M-Tuned In Line Thermostat Housing with T-Stat M-Tuned



Yeah, but only two of those positions will put the heater outlet anywhere near horizontal, and the other way puts the CLT sensor at the bottom. Either that or I just really suck at visualizing objects in three dimensional space (which, I admit, is true.)


It's called a joke, dude. I ordered this thing two months ago when they were still hashing out the design.

 

So other than one of the bolts being to long and needing to replace it - what else was missing? I think that we will need to do a different part list for the 1.6L version, as the longer bolts fit my NB. And the NB has to lengthen the wires to the coolant sensor. We have found better routing of lines since your stuff was shipped. If you want them, let me know.

The reason for the coolant sensor being off set is so that it will clear the thermostat when installed.
Stephanie

 

Whatever you want to call it dude. I'm just speaking from my own personal point of view. If I pay good money for something I expect it to be right. Tube's too long, wrong bolts, missing fittings but hey, If that's what you want to pay for go for it.

 

Joe,
I bet the longer bolts are the right length for the Begi water neck and that they aren't designed specifically for the Kia water neck. Just guessing.
Good write-up!

Edit: and it looks like Stephanie's picture has the tube routed higher and outside of the intake manifold. That may account for the excess length. Did you read the destructions? Or are you being a re-engineer?

 

If the heater pickup is near the thermostat, the circulation will allow warming coolant to flow near the t-stat so it will open in a timely manner.

In a remote t-stat location (such as in the hose feeding the radiator), you can get a little bit of flow while t-stat is closed by drilling a small hole in the t-stat. Said hole however, will lengthen warmup time a bit.

 

We use the Kia Water Neck too. I think the difference is in the year of car. The longer ones fit my car just fine. But it is an '02. So I just need to make a new parts list for the 1.6L with shorter bolts.
Stephanie

 

Only the 3/8" NPT plug to fill the aux port on the spacer which I didn't use, and the 3/8" NPT to 5/8" Hose Barb fitting for the heater core. Interestingly, there was a 1/8" NPT plug included, so I'm guessing maybe you'd intended to furnish a 3/8" NPT to 1/8" NPT reducer (as opposed to just a 3/8" NPT plug)? Apart from that, everything was great. There was actually a surplus of hose clamps (even factoring in that I didn't use one of the hose sections) which is nice, as I'll no doubt be re-using those on future projects.

Sounds like a plan. I did not have to lengthen the CLT wire at all, in fact it fit perfectly. And like I said, I don't have a CAS so I couldn't verify the fitment there, it just seems to me that the CLT sensor wound up being awfully close to where it would be on a 1.6 engine.

I do quite like the look of the new hose routing, but in the end I'm happy with the way mine turned out, and I see no reason to change it.

Yeah, I guessed as much. When I ordered mine, I requested it without the thermostat (as I re-used my existing Stant 180° thermostat which was only about 2 years old) and as you can see, there is loads of clearance. Do y'all normally supply an OEM twin-element unit, or are you shipping aftermarket ones like mine?

 

i have the begi reroute and i cut myself so many times trying to get that thing in there.. yea its a pain in the ***. i was laying on top of my engine just to be able to get a wrench in and turn it.. ON a side note if you are removing your tranny go ahead and do it then. i did my friends when he did a clutch and it was real easy from the bottom. takes 5 min to do.. it took me 4 hours from the top and i had a leak. :(

 

Like I said earlier, mine was basically a prototype, so the hoses Steph has pictured are different from the ones I got. No matter, it fits just fine on my car.

 

So gonna do this next time I'm not a broke-*** college student.

Great write up as usual Senor Perez.

Stephanie...your car needs a bath, but I'm still jealous.

Thymer...I hope the above posts show where BEGi shines. They may not get it all perfect right out of the box (this kit was just developed), but they stay in contact with customers and work to make it right.

 

Steph,

The kit I received didn't have a plug or heater hose fitting just as Joe's didn't. Easy parts to find but they are needed for the install and aren't in the kit. I've got the long bolts too. It'll be interesting to see if they work on the NA 1.8 or if they are too long for all NA's.

 

We are using a 180 degree one, I am not sure it if OEM to something or aftermarket. I will have to find out.

Incidentally, the first front thermostat block off plate (for my car) was too thin and leaked. If yours has problems let me know and I will replace it with a thicker one. We installed a thinner on an NA and it did not have problems. So another "go figure".
Stephanie

 

She was nice and shiny and pretty for Miata World II. Then it rained.
Stephanie

 

The plate that I got was about 1/4" thick, so I can't imagine there being a problem. As I said earlier however, I wound up not using it, and mailed it to Doppelgänger instead. He should probably be receiving it in the next day or two, so if there's a problem he'll be the one to know.

Also, re-check the picture I posted above with the red bolts going through the spacer and water neck. The longer of the two is so long that the unthreaded portion protrudes out past the spacer. I don't see how this would fit any car, so maybe I just got an oddball, but it's something you should check out.


And just to reiterate for everyone else, despite a couple of missing pieces that wound up costing me a grand total of about $8, I'm really quite happy with the setup, and of course with Steph and all the folks at Bell. In response to thymer, I can only repeat what gospeed has already said- the difference between a good company and a great one is primarily service after the sale. Not too many folks will offer to send you updated parts for free, despite the fact that yours are working fine, just because they tweaked the design a bit.

 

Desire to do the right thing is admirable for sure but the cost of fixing things after the sale is expensive both to BEGI and their customers.