Making our Coventry Climax’s water pump race-ready

Update by Tim Suddard to the Elva Mk VI project car
Nov 28, 2024 | Elva, Restoration, Vintage Race Car, Elva Mk VI

Coventry Climax engines are famed for use in race cars, but not all of them had such glory. Our FW was designed for a water pump.

[Identifying our Coventry Climax engine]

While we rebuilt the engine earlier, we still needed to rebuild the original water pump for the rigors of high-rpm use as a stock Coventry Climax water pump is not designed to run at 6000 rpm. Penta Motorsports has developed a modified bearing and shaft setup to accomplish this goal of sustaining high-rpm activity.

Initially, we ordered these parts and were going to rebuild the pump ourselves. With everything else going on around here and the expertise needed to do this job correctly, we decided to just send the pump to Penta Motorsports and let them rebuild it.

This is what they reported, upon receiving our roughly 65-year-old water pump:

The front V pulley was repaired. It was out of round.

We replaced the water pump housing bolts. We machined 0.010 off the back side of the pump to increase the sealing capacity. We replaced the pump seal. We bead blasted all pump components. 

We repaired corrosion inside the pump. We drilled and tapped a pipe fitting for a drain plug. We machined a flat spot on the bearing for shaft retention. We machined the taper off of the pump input side inlet to keep the hose from slipping off. We assembled with new seal and bearing that we supplied.  

The total cost for all this was a seemingly reasonable $250. Sounds like a lot for a water pump rebuild? Well, we figure it’s less than the cost of overheating an engine. Unlike parts for a MG or Triumph, you just can’t order Elva engine parts from the Moss catalog.

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