Water Pumps
Performance Water Pumps — Electric and Mechanical Cooling
The water pump circulates coolant through the engine block, cylinder heads, and radiator — the driving force behind the entire liquid cooling circuit. A worn or inefficient water pump reduces coolant flow through the system, causing localised hot spots in the engine, elevated average coolant temperatures, and reduced heater output in cold weather. On performance builds, an upgraded water pump that delivers higher flow rates ensures adequate cooling at elevated power levels where heat rejection demands are proportionally higher than in stock applications.
With 104 water pump products from ARP, Frostbite, Mr. Gasket, Weiand, and Holley, our range covers both mechanical belt-driven pumps for traditional V8 applications and electric water pumps that provide performance advantages in certain build scenarios.
High-Flow Mechanical Water Pumps
High-flow mechanical water pumps for SBC and BBC applications increase coolant flow rate beyond the factory specification, providing improved cooling capacity for modified engines producing more heat than the original equipment was designed to manage. Improved impeller designs, closer housing tolerances, and in some cases reverse-rotation options for certain pulley configurations make high-flow units a meaningful upgrade on any engine operating at elevated power levels or in high ambient temperature environments.
Electric Water Pumps — Advantages and Applications
Electric water pump systems replace the mechanical pump with an electrically driven unit that can be controlled independently of engine RPM. The primary advantage is elimination of the parasitic power loss associated with mechanically driving a pump — a high-flow mechanical water pump consumes meaningful power at high RPM that an electric pump can redirect to the wheels. Secondary advantages include continued coolant circulation after engine shutdown — beneficial for turbocharged applications where heat soak after a hard run can cause localised coolant boiling — and the elimination of a failure mode associated with mechanical pump bearing and seal failure.
