So, one of the things that I wanted to address over the winter was the cooling system in the little piece of poo. Not that it wasn't running as wonderfully as it should, becuase my coolant temps never got above 175* on the highway as long as we were moving, and never breached 180* on The Dragon or HellBender, more, it was a few little quirks that bothered me about them. One, was the lack of -16 lines on the rad
Two wasthe perpetual air-bubble that was ALWAYS in the radiator becuase of how I mounted it, Three was the sheer hideousness of the factory T-stat housing and the maze of passageways in there, four was the air-bubble that always presented itself on first start-up after refilling the cooling system. THe SOP for purging said bubble WAS to start the car, let it get to 185* when the fan kicked on, watch the temp skyrocket to 195*, shut her down, come back in 20 minutes and carefully crack the AST open and let all the air out, add approx 2 pints of coolant, be on your way..... kind of a PITA if you ask me.... so lets address these problems shall we?
First thing I did was get rid of the stock T-stat housing in place of a piece that I built. Pretty simple actually, and very atractive if you ask me. At the end of the day I didn't even need any sealant either, the flange mounts tight enough to use the factory t-stat gasket ring. @ 20psi, there are no leaks. I was pleased
Next up, was tackling the same but this time on the lower rad hose. This is probably the least close to a stock waterpump housing as you can get
All the barb fittings have been removed. THe return from the heater core, which also collects from the AST has already been converted to a -10, and right below the new upper rad hose connection you can see what was once a plug has been converted to a 1/4"npt to -4 fitting. This -4 fitting connects to the coolant outlet at the rear iron. This is where I believe the air was being trapped. A long time ago when I first built this engine I took the barb out and tapped it to 1/4" npt and put an allen plug in it. Over the winter all I did was pull that plug out and put in an AL adapter, built a line and plumbed it from the rear iron to the WP housing. I believe this was key to eliminating the air pockets, as well as the mods I did to the rad. You'll also note what was once the return from the turbo's has also been converted to a -6, as was the feed on the back on the WP housing... so yeah..... there is a distinct lack of hose clamps
Here we have the completed WP housing. Everything powdercoated as well.... all the little pieces that I can fit in my electric oven I powdercoat. Anything bigger I send out to a guy I have local who does incredible work.
The thing to note on this pic is the tapped fitting at the top of the WP housing. This is now the highest point of the cooling system on the engine. This get's plumbed into the custom AST that I built that mounts on the passenger side strut tower.
Here we see it plumbed in place. I took the Tweakit Racing Idler pulley kit and drilled and tapped it to mount an adel clamp the keep the line secure and free from the rather quickly spinning belts. I know it's not an ideal routing as this is what is supposed to collect and purge all the trapped air, but it seems to work quite well actually. I believe because when you first start the car up, the waterpump is of course going to try to move some coolant. With the T-stat closed, and no jiggle pin (which I found odd considering it's a Mazda genuine part) the coolant is circulating through the path of least resistance. This would be through the AST and the heater core and that particular line and of course the line from the rear iron to the lower side of the WP housing. I believe that all the air is purged from the system upon first start-up. Any air that makes it's way back into the system upon cooling is instantly purged as well. This is probably why I was able to run 1500 miles without any coolant in the overflow tank and a bunch of air getting sucked back in.... yeah yeah my dumbass didn't fully tighen a cap after checking the coolant and it got lost somewhere in Virgina doing a burn-out infront of some car with the license plate FRSH-SXY
I NEED to find a pic of this car... it was epic.... anyway... I knew of the coolant and decided to test how well it all worked... I was pleased. Why everyone ditches the AST is beyond me. I went to great lengths to add one for a good reason.
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-The Angry Stig-
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and no this never happened to me 
higher though, on the adjacent plane where the top of the rad will be. This is the second fitting that is connected to my AST. You can see it on the top right in the pic. You can also see the -6 Male bung lower left that I use for flushing and draining. It works very well and again, no hose clamps.... I CAN'T STAND IT when people plug unused coolant fittings with bolts and RTV... some may or may not remember this rant... you probably would as I had almost completely lost my voice and was getting rather worked up about it 
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