Coolant tank rerouting questions, suggestions, and examples.

[Legacy777]

Josh, paypal it to Laurelthequeen@hotmail.com
You'll probably want to hit it with a wire brush and then paint it, as the welds will rust without paint over it. That's why we painted mine all daggy silver.

Will do.

sent.

[georryan]

Well sweet. I have my wrx coolant tank now as well as the turbo coolant hard line from a td04, although I'm wondering now if the bolts are the same size for that line between the IHI turbo and the mitsubishi turbo. It may have a sealing problem if the IHI bolts are smaller. We'll see when I pull my vf11 out.

Also, I just realized the wrx coolant tank takes its hard lines up and out the top of the tank...seems like it would be a pain to get the air out of the lines like that.

-Ryan

[vrg3]

The banjo bolts are the same on our stock turbos and stock WRX TD04 turbos.

Yeah, it does seem odd that they'd design the pipes that way... I guess it works out, though. After all, the very first time you stop the engine, the coolant vaporizing in the turbo's cooling jackets will force its way through that bend to get out the radiator cap.

[georryan]

Yeah I sappose so, but still, it just seems that adding coolant initially you'll have air in the system you just can't avoid. Our current design everything is below the cap and the top of the tank. These guys stick out above the top of the tank. hehe

Good to know on the bolts. I was worried it was like the tdo5 which has larger bolts.

[vrg3]

Right... so at a minimum one warming/cooling cycle would be required to burp their system. I also like ours better.

Yeah, the TD04 doesn't have the larger bolts that the TD05 does.

Ooh -- there's a small chance you'll have trouble putting the upper coolant line from the TD04 onto your VF11, now that I think about it. It could interfere with the oil feed line. I don't know. I seem to remember the lower coolant line from a VF11 not fitting on a TD04 because it interfered with the oil drain line.

[georryan]

The hard line is going to go on a vf8, not my vf11. Although, looking at that today, also made me question whether this would fit. We'll just have to see. Worst case scenario: I put my vf11 hard line on and just do some funky routing.

[rallysam]

Finally, photos of my WRX coolant tank relocation:

Below is a photo of the bracket - which I highlighted with a yellow box so you can see it. It's just a straight strip of aluminum that runs vertically from the ABS module up to the coolant tank. The coolant tank and the ABS module both had bolts already in those locations..







And here was my description of what I did (posted as a reminder):

Mounting
We mounted the tank in the big void space at the front of the engine compartment on the passenger side (between the ABS and the radiator and the airbox and the charcol canister). We made a mounting bracket out of one straight strip of aluminum. The bracket attaches to an existing nut on the ABS module (the nut is easy to find, near the bottom of the ABS module, pointing sideways towards the drivers side of the car). From there, the aluminum strip points straight up where the tank can bolt into the side of it.

Routing
I bought 6 feet of 5/16" diameter coolant hose and another 12 feet of 0.5" diameter coolant hose from Advance Auto. I also bought a male-to-male barb coupler (both barbs 5/16")

1/2" line from the turbo Removed stock line. Ran new hose in a 180 degree bend back so it heads towards the passenger side, then dives down under the turbo compressor. It pops back up in the space between the engine and airbox. Then it's at the new tank.

1/2" line from the engine block Removed stock line. New line runs along the driver's side of the engine compartment towards the front of the car. When it gets to the front of the car, it runs in front of the radiator all the way to the passenger side of the car. When it pops out from behind the radiator, it's at the new tank.

5/16" line from the overflow bottle I kept the stock one in the bottle b/c it fits nicely. I bought a male-to-male plastic barb coupler (5/16") at Advanced Auto. This can be used to attach an extension tube to the stock one that's still in the bottle. Ran the extension tube in front of the radiator (following the path of the other tube just described above)

5/16" line from the radiator This is easy. I unplugged it from the old metal pipe that runs under the intake manifold towards the old location. I could plug the old tube directly into the new coolant tank. No modification. Yay!


In this location, it's still the highest point in the system. I'll try to take some pics in the light.

What do you guys think of that setup?

[Imprezive]

Hey Laurel, whats up with the recirulation valve system or as you put it "excess of tubing and hose clamps sitting directly above the turbo". Why didn't you use an aftermarket bov?

[georryan]

Thanks Rallysam!

[LaureltheQueen]

Hey Laurel, whats up with the recirulation valve system or as you put it "excess of tubing and hose clamps sitting directly above the turbo". Why didn't you use an aftermarket bov?

most of it's the pcv system actually. The bov wasn't replaced because I didn't have one besides the STi one sitting in the garage.

[georryan]

Well I'm almost done, but I ran across a problem. It seems the water pump hard line that goes to the back of the coolant tank also has another line off of it. I did as rallysam did and rerouted that line in front of the radiator and hooked that line into the upper water pump line that faces out towards the driver's side. The lower one goes to the heater core.

When I add more coolant now, it flows out of that hard line. I looked at some diagrams and it looks like that line actually has another connection on it that goes up towards the intake. If I where you guys with this relocation on your car, I'd stick a bolt in the top and bottom of the old hardline locations and clamp them down (assuming you still have your rubber hoses on there) so that it is a closed system again. I found this out by adding coolant directly to the 5/16" line that goes to the radiator. Filling that radiator by filing that wrx tank is ludicrous. Whoever designed that wrx coolant tank should be promoted out of his department. It takes forever to fill.

More on this later.....

[georryan]

Ok, coolant tank is successfully relocated, and I have pluged the rubber lines on top and below the hardline that used to run from the old tank to the water pump. So far no leaking, I'll have to watch for it.

Because I put in an AWIC, and the water pump lines I was using ran right in the spot where the overflow bottle was at, I decided to remove it. I never had any coolant in that thing anyway. The lid didn't stay shut and there wasn't much of anything ever in it.

When I bought a new radiator a couple weeks ago, I recieved an automatic one, so I decided to stick my overflow line in the bottom tranny cooler line. That way pressure would push coolant into the tranny cooler portion of the radiator and gravity/sucction would pull it back. I just can't fill the overflow bottle anymore, but it isn't like I was doing it before anyways. I plugged the upper tranny cooler line for the time being as well. Other than that, I did exactly what rallysam and the others have done. (I couldn't use the TD04 hard coolant turbo line, so I used my vf11 one)

[magicmike]

Dont know if this thread is dead or not but here is what I did with mine



all pics here
http://www.thawa.net/gallery/album08?page=1

[Imprezive]

Looks good magicmike, mind writing up a little how-to post?

[Subtle]

Does anyone know the volume contained by the coolant tank

[0perose]

Don't put stress on the nipples.

that's what she said

[magicmike]

Looks good magicmike, mind writing up a little how-to post?

There is not much to write up really, I just made a metal bracket and mouted it where the washer fluid bottle was. I just bought coolant lines of all the hoses and just ran all new lines to the location. pretty self explanitory.

[AWD_addict]

What washer fluid bottle are you using now? Was it difficult to find one that would fit in the quarter panel?

[magicmike]

What washer fluid bottle are you using now? Was it difficult to find one that would fit in the quarter panel?

Oh yeah, about that lol. I used the washer bottle from my 87 GL wagon before I scrapped it. I had to cut about 1/3 of it off so the corner light would fit back in the fender. I had not measured for the large plug that holds the bulb. Anyway, I got it all to fit in there but I hadn't fully sealed the bottle well so it leaked washer fluid all the time. I was going to get to it but havent yet. In retrospect I would try to find a different location for the washer tank.

[georryan]

For those of you who didn't catch it in my post earlier, there is a line coming from the intake, I belive, into the middle of that hardline that connects the stock coolant filler tank to the water pump. Point being, if you routed the lower 1/2" line from the bottom of your wrx coolant tank directly to the water pump, and thereby disconnecting the hardline from the waterpump, you potentially have a problem with your system.

I found this out because I was tired of waiting for the wrx coolant tank to fill the system with coolant, so to speed things up I popped off the 5/16" line going to the radiator, and with a small funnel I filled the system that way. I got it almost full before I started having coolant flowing out of that hardline. I checked some diagrams and found that in the middle of the hardline there is a small line that comes off of it and it looks like it goes up the underside of the intake.

I'm guessing you'll want this back in the system. If you haven't done anything about this I'd be watching your coolant very closely.

I have since fixed this problem by rerouting my line to the back of the engine rather than the waterpump, and I have the hardline connected to the water pump again.

-Ryan

[Legacy777]

That line goes to the throttle body and idle air control valve. You can see it in this pic

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8 ... P_4996.JPG

[rallysam]

Weird, we took that hard line out completely, and we never noticed any problems