Does anyone here have any experience with coolant swirl tanks? I've never liked the factory overflow bottle for its location or how it is poorly sealed to dirt and dust and looking at alternatives. Having a secondary smaller reservoir higher than the radiator seems to be a fairly common thing in modern cars these days which makes me wonder if there is an actual benefit to be gained? The theory is that the tank creates a vortex swirl of water/coolant inside that removes small air bubbles that rob cooling efficiency. Thoughts?
Yes factory overflow bottle is definitely in a dumb place. Putting an alternative in a higher position makes sense. When you do that, (if just repositioning the tank) see if you have room to wrap a magnet belt around it.
Short of pump cavitation or a blown head gasket, explian how 'coolant bubbles' would be in the system to start with? As for the cooling benefits, it would be in line with an extra litre or so of coolant, as the breather tank is part of the pressurized system. So that's a plus.
Dissolved oxygen, the solubility of oxygen and other gases decreases as temperature rises so they drop out as gas bubbles. Not saying it's significant to cooling but that's the theory. As for OP the real big benefit is just the system basically auto-bleeds if you get it right, no possibility of user error once it's set up right.
Yep agreed. Nothing wrong with the location and setup of the standard tank to keep the level correct. Swirl tanks only really needed when you have a weird radiator setup that is hard to bleed.
I've seen it done, and it's quite effective. Move the battery to the boot, go to a wreckers and find a tank from any vehicle that fits in it's location. Replace the cap on the radiator with a sealed cap, and plumb in the tank. Ford mondeo from the late 90's fit. 2 key benefits are the auto bleed and primarily, the extra 3-5L of coolant you can run.
Have run one for years in battery location. Hard to measure benefits empirically... Those tanks that @mungyz used to make could easily be configured as a swirl pot and I don’t think you have to move anything to fit them.
