Indigo FWC
 

My boat is laid up getting new rigging. So while I can't sail I replaced the leaky head. When I did that I also opened the clean out and did just that. Some PO had been there before because the cover came off easily. I cleaned the cooling passages up with a mind to finally, finally, finally switch to FWC.

I emailed Tom Stevens (Indigo) and he had a new pump with his kit and was asking $450 for it. That price pushed me over the edge and this afternoon I drove up to Williamsburg and picked it up.

Of course lunch was involved. We had a delicious Brunswick stew, some thing with ham in it and finished with apple pie and coffee. And talked. I love being an old(er) retired guy. Tom is a very nice fellow.

Tomorrow I will start installing and keep this forum informed as to my progress. I have a little over a week before the rigging is done so I figure I have plenty of time- bugs and glitched included. Wish me luck!

Bill,
Please include photos (I'm illiterate).

One concern expressed on this forum re. electric FWC has been related to pump life and motor voltages.

The new pump that comes with the FWC kit is a brushless motor rated for 10000 hours. The Indigo site says that the "speed of this brushless motor remains constant with an input voltage ranging from 9 to 15VDC. For this reason there is no need to have a Ballast Resistor to manage the voltage level and no concern about overloading the motor with either too high or too low voltage."

I have no affiliation with Indigo.

The short life of the previous electric motors was my excuse for not going to electric FWC. I am now going to wait for the exchange rate to improve...

Peter

I tried a cheap supercharger intercooler pump that failed in short order but since installing Johnson CM30P7-1 pumps (two in series) I've enjoyed reliable operation for many years. I'd be interested in hearing any information you may have on the short life mentioned in your post.

I never had any issues with the Johnson pumps either, but I did run them through ballast resistors. Keep in mind with typical useage rates of sailboat engines, a 1,000 hour pump could easily last 10-15 years.

This speaks to the discussions we have had in the past about newer, higher charging voltages and the effect they have on ancillary equipment. The new chemistry batteries might be happier at the expense of connected equipment.

I re-checked the spec sheet for the Johnson pump, 12VDC +/- 20% (9.6 - 14.4VDC). Personally my coolant pumps are in good shape without a supplemental resistor by staying with conventional batteries and 14.2V alternator output.

Quite true. In a normal season on the Chesapeake, I put about 100 hrs on the engine each year (winds become light to non-existant in July-August).

On the other hand, our last trip down the ICW and back saw over 500 hrs on the engine hour meter!

To me the flow rate of the new Bosch pump is a bigger benefit than the lifespan. Up in Canada it is no issue, but here the raw water can be over 80 degrees quite easily, so cooling can be marginal.

I have the older style Indigo (Johnson) pump with no ballast resistor. Haven't had any trouble yet, but it's only been in this year.

The spec sheet for the Johnson pump mentions "up to 5000 hours pump life"

https://www.pumpvendor.com/Johnson_C...-1_series.html

which does indeed sound like a lot of hours for a typical sailboat.

My memory was telling me a much lower number...

Peter

Thank you Peter for clarifying the pump life span question. I did a little research tonight regarding centrifugal pumps. The new Indigo pump has roughly twice the flow as the Johnson (at three times the amperage BTW), other specs being roughly equal (voltage, fluid temperature). I also learned connecting multiple pumps (like I currently have) different ways are for different strategies and produce different results.

The strategy of connecting the pumps in series is to gain greater head pressure, flow rates being equal. If increased flow rate is what you want, connect the pumps in parallel. As for the latter, there is another factor to consider, system resistance. At some point the flow rate will be checked or limited by the combination of various resistances in our cooling systems. Water jacket build up, HX build up, hose and fitting sizes are examples.

Which brings me to my dilemma. I installed two Johnson pumps for increased flow but ignorantly connected them in series. I can make a project out of reconfiguring them to parallel but to what end? My engine can run all day long at 165° as currently configured including the new MMI thermostat. If I replumb the pumps to parallel to maximize flow I expect to run at - - yep, 165°, the thermostat being the controlling factor.

What's the point? None that I can think of.

Parallel would be bad unless you have valves on them. If one dies it short-circuits the other one.

The firefighters among us may be familiar with two-stage pumps on fire engines. The "Pressure" setting puts the two stages in series to maximize pressure in situations like pumping "uphill" to higher floors in a structure. The "Volume" setting puts them in parallel for maximum lift when drafting water from a pond, etc.

You don't see these as often as you once did.

Bill

Here's a couple pics of just getting started. That little pump and Tom's lowered price are what sold me. I had been on the edge for 4 years. Looks pretty complete. I will have to buy the hose and a couple elbows to facilitate my HX mounting. The HX is of heavier construction than I had imagined.

Bill, pay close attention to your ignition circuit voltage drop. You are adding 6.6 amps (new pump) to it for a total of over 2½ times what the engine's ignition requires. Once installed measure your coil input voltage and divide it by your alternator output voltage at cruising RPM. If the quotient is anything less than 0.97 you should increase the entire ignition circuit to a larger gauge wire.

With my 2 Johnson pumps (4.4A combined), 3.3 amps for the ignition and a Hella-long run from midships to the control panel at the stern and back I'm running 10 gauge wire to mitigate the loss.

10-4, thank you Neil.

My son and I installed it today, minus the wiring. Had a great dad n lad time working together listening to Christmas music then Led Zeppelin. Nice mix. Of course he gets lunch out of the deal- that's the rules, right?

Everything went together easily. I had studied Tom's instructions, measured for all the plumbing yesterday and got $47 worth of heater hoses today.

Location?
 

Wondering where you mounted the HX? On our Tartan 27 I put it in the starboard sail locker.

Don't forget to keep an eye on the HX pencil zinc - had quite a hassle replacing mine after neglecting it for a few years.

WARNING!
Bleeding the air out of the system with the electric pump is about 20 times harder than you think. It is very easy to get some circulation that will hold temp at idle and still have air pockets that will cause the engine to overheat badly under load.
Run a jumper so you can use the pump with the ignition off and run with the heat exchanger cap off until all the air is bled. I had a couple of air bleed valves that helped a lot.

Hose Size
 

Alcodiesel, Out of curiosity, what are the hose sizes on the coolant and raw water sides?.
Tom

To answer your ?s:
The HX is in the lazerette. Hoses: seawater-5/8, coolant- 3/4 and pressure gauge to the diverter 1/2
The pump is in a locker next to the engine and is about 3 feet lower than the HX.
This thing takes hardly any effort to bleed. The pump shuts down when the impeller is dry then restarts a few seconds later. I'm adding water at the HX as the air is bubbles out. I did this several times during my testing.

Today was an all in test:
The cooling water was cloudy at worst, nothing large enough to get caught in the filter so I removed it.

I ran the A4 at 1000rpm with a barnacled prop engaged ( big load) for 15 min. the temp was 100- barely off the pin.

I'm sitting in the cockpit in the sun just listening. Then the engine sputtered once. I look at the temp- 200!

I slowed to idle, disengage the prop and shut down. Turns out the jumper I had on the pump lead fell off.

I re connected it, restarted, engaged prop, went to 1k rpm again and it cooled off quickly (like a minute)to 120 and stayed there till I shut down 10 mins later.

I'd say this test was a success, especially it's ability to cool off while under load.

Nice. Does the kit not come with an expansion tank? The cobbled-up FWC in my boat didn’t have one and HX just overflowed to the bilge, requiring daily topping-up. Just one of many weird PO tricks.

I too moved the HX to the sail locker. Actually, I installed a water heater outboard of the standpipe and the HX and expansion tank aft of that. It’s easy to open the locker and do a quick visual inspection of coolant level in the translucent exp tank.

Strangely, I seem to go through a (NAPA) pressure cap almost every season. It’s like the cap is more sacrificial than the zinc. Someday I’ll have to sit down and think about that...

FYI - 1000 RPM is not that big a load. Did you try running flat out for an hour?

Be sure
 

Bill, if you are checking the performance of the cooling system then test it under a cruising load.

AND be sure that the engine box is closed as a lot of heat radiates out when open adding to the cooling and it is gone when the box is closed. I have been on boats (power & sail) when cooling starts to be an issue as the temps were rising. In many cases when we opened the engine(s) up to the open air we could run a few hundred more RPM's and stay cooler than when closed;).

Dave Neptune :cool:

While absolutely true you want to test at full cruising speed, you also want to crank it up to wide open throttle for a while. If you ever need to push it that hard you'll want to know what to expect. Temps will be higher, guaranteed.

Oh yeah, I concur on the full load test. That's coming.

I am still getting too much pressure on the coolant circuit (14psi), like there's a blockage somewhere. Yet when I pull off the hose from the manifold exit it really blasts the water out. It's a work in progress.

I am not in a huge rush as the boat is still mast-less. Now the holidays are getting in the way of the rigger finishing the job.