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The Cooling System
Since the rest of the cooling system components showed up, it was time to start on that aspect of the swap. Since we could not use the stock water pump, we decided to use a remote-mount electric pump. But first, we needed some custom pieces that would allow us to hook coolant hoses directly to the block. Below are some prototype drawings of what was used. There were two of the flat blocks used for hoses-to-block and one of the bigger piece for mounting the stock 2.8L thermostat housing.
Here are some pics of these pieces installed on the block:
To keep the reverse flow cooling system on the engine, you need to route the lower pair of holes in the block to the thermostat housing. The upper pair of holes in the block need to go to the discharge side of whatever water pump you are using. As stated before, we used an aftermarket electric water pump. This unit is from Meziere and is P/N WP116 which flows approx 35 gal/hr and draws about 5-15 amps. Here is a picture of the water pump which was mounted inside the space just in front of the right-rear tire.
Notice the circled region shows where a potential air pocket develops. This problem is solved by running a vapor or "burp" line up to one of the available coolant bypass lines on the stock 2.8L thermostat housing.
With the cooling system filled and checked for leaks, it was time to finish the exhaust.