I've heard that S4s have aluminum coolant necks instead of whatever this brittle crappy thing is on my S5 N/A engine?

Which cars have an aluminum one that I can swap off so it doesn't corrode and fail?

Would the cast alum one that Higgi sells fit on my N/A?

--Gary

 

On s4's the coolant neck is part of the thermostat housing, on s5's it's the plastic piece on the radiator. They are not interchangable.

 

I'm talking about this piece...

--Gary

 

check a wrecking yard and grab one off an S4, they are aluminum, i see them all the time when i am looking for parts.


i have seen some variences though, my 87 S4 has a radiator cap on the radiator where the overflow hose is and a filler cap on the thermostat housing, some i have seen without a filler cap but still aluminum housings, then there is your style which is neither.

 

His style is the S5 style.

Mine got so bad I could tare pieces off of it.

The plastic sucks, but look at it this way. they do last a good 15 years!

But in the end there is no alluminum or metal replacement.

 

you're right, i just noticed that it has more than 2 bolts holding it down.


my suggestion to you guys then is to look into switching to a complete S4 waterpump housing then.

 

I'm surprised there are no "performance" ones made by anyone... seeing as I bet this part breaks all the time in race prepped cars? =/

Would an S4 water pump fit? I'd assume so... but you never know, maybe the bolt placement on the end housing is different for S5s...?

--Gary

 

the only difference i can think of would be the bracket mounts, the air pump is bolted to the water pump housing on an S4 below the t-stat housing, i don't know about an S5.

 

Do a search...
We were looking into making them for about $100 - $150, and everyone balked that is was too expensive.
Since reponse was negative, the whole project was scrapped.


-Ted

 

Damn that sucks... I'd suppose that is a bit expensive though... unless it was for a racing application I don't think it'd be THAT important to replace it. So the only people willing to buy at that price would be autoxers and track racers... who probably all could fabricate something or swap from an S4.

Oh well. And I tried a search but I wasn't sure what it was called..

I'll probably just wait and see what happens, maybe I'll look more into replacing it with the S4 one if that's possible.

--Gary

 

they are interchangable... although when you do that, you will have 2 radiator caps due to the s4's fill their coolant at the neck and s5's fill at the radiator..!

see..in the pic, you can see there are 2 caps..... not a big deal to some

 

You cant swap the metal s4 neck into an s5 one without changing the whole waterpump assembly to s4 as well.

 

I believe you can also swap out the 3rd gen water pump and housing, but that also means you'd need to change the belts.

 

You also need to swap out the water pump studs, cause the FC ones are too long.
The inlets and outlets are a little different, so you need to get creative with the radiators hoses.

Back to the metal S5 thermostat covers...
KSP Engineering used to sell them at $200USD *EACH*, so that was the only benchmark we were working with.
The stock units are $70 each, so if you're replaced it twice, you would've been ahead.
Unless you can guarantee minimum sales, we were shooting for 10 to 20 units.
If you can get 50 guarantee sales, we can drop the price easily under $100 each.
If you can get 100 guarantee sales, I think we can MATCH the stock replacement price of $70 or even get it CHEAPER than that.
It's all about volume.

If anyone is interested, we an easily get this rolling and get them made within a month or two depending on how busy the shop is.
Monies need to be paid up front - we're not fronting the cash for anything up front, cause too many people bail out.


-Ted

 

I dunno... the guy above you has a picture of the swap... ;P haha... I suppose if I find an S4 in the junkyard soon I'll find out if they're interchangable.

And Ted yeah as much as I'd love to get in on that even I can't afford a $100 coolant neck right now... I'm sure it'd be impossible to get 20 people let alone 50. Thanks for offering it though... maybe in a year or two they'll start cracking and people will starting looking to replace them left and right, then you'll be in business haha.

--Gary

 

Just to note, I'm temporarly swapping in an S4 motor into my S5. I tried to put the S5 water pump housing on an S4 motor and it doesn't clear the front cover.

 

That's odd, i have a S4 in my car with all S5 excessories (including the S5 water pump and housing). Are you using the S5 front cover? You do realize that you MUST use the S5 front cover right?

 

That's odd.
I have two customers with S5 engines with S4 water pump housings and water pumps.
I would think it could be done vice versa.


-Ted

 

The first one lasted ~15 years, and there's no reason not to expect a new one to do the same. Even if you do replace it twice, that's 30 more years of service, or $2.33/year...

 

I know this thread is a little old but just want to see if there is still any interest in anybody making these.

My plastic s5 neck cracked last night when I was doing some hard driving. It came attached on my REMAN so it only has about 7k miles on it and I'm pretty pissed off. I'd gladly pay $100-150 for a metal one and never have to buy and OEM one at $70 again. BTW my temp gauge did not get past 88*C last night and my cooling system has no problems.