Mi16 Top/rear Water Pipe

[matthewm 1]

Think I might of seen on here a while ago about people blanking off the pipe coming out the back of the thermostat, and removing the steel pipe which runs across the back of the rocker cover, and links down to above the bottom engine mount. So in effect running it identical to the 8v set-up.

Anyone done this to comment on the effect on the cooling?

Thanks

[Anthony 1,003]

Yes it's a very common way to plumb in the cooling system on an Mi, and no, it doesn't have any significant downsides - that pipe doesn't even "work" on most Mi's these days as most people run an 8v thermostat rather than the Mi 'stat which is different.

[matthewm 1]

Thanks, in what way is the thermostat different between the 8v and the MI16? The only purpose I can see for this pipe is to allow the water to flow if the heater matrix was blocked and the stat was shut.

[Stu 18]

The 'proper' Mi stat is two stage; as opposed to the open/closed nature of the 8v one. I run mine blanked off, ive got a few pics of doing it if it'd help, pretty straight forward to be honest.

 

I did mine mainly because it eliminates another hose that could fail (like the one connects that housing to the rail that runs across the back of the head on mine did ) and as Ant says, once you use an 8v stat and cap it functions as per the 8v setup.

[matthewm 1]

Two stage, thats a new one to me, guessing it opens so much at a certain temp and then fully at higher?

 

Fancied removing it for same reason as you, got a BBM silicon kit on order which contains the two flexis although not sure of the idea of having 4 unnecessary joins and a pipe running directly above the heat of the manifold, on car used for rallying.

[Baz 421]

Get rid then, all it really does it heat the coolant up earlier to provide heat inside the car quicker.