alpinewhite951

I am removing my headers to do my balance shaft rear seal, and was thinking since I have to remove the coolant rail to just keep it off since i do not have the heater in the car. I am planning on getting the Lindsey block off plate and I think they used to offer a 3/8" plug for the water pump.

Is there any advantage? Better cooling to the rear of the cylinder head/ easier to bleed? or will it just be two less hoses to worry about?

APKhaos

You can do this. I ran for several seasons with that rail deleted. I replaced it when I did my first HG, mainly because I'd read nasty things about uneven cooling at the back of the head. This is a dedicated race car. For a street car I suspect you'd be fine to delete it.

V2Rocket

looking at the design of the waterpump, is water pumped from the pump through the rail towards the heater core or does the rail flow towards the front of the car?

xsboost90

lots of 944spec guys delete the rail and block off the head with that plate- makes no difference since flowing coolant goes through the block and out the top of the head.

rlm328

I deleted my rail long time ago. As stated by Dan, the rail is the return line from the heat exchanger inside the car. I tapped the return out on the water plug and installed a brass bull plug. I also use the Lindsey steam vent line to assist the #4 cylinder water flow.

The primary benefit is that you don't have to worry about a 25 year old heat exchanger breaking on you, you are eliminating the plastic heater control valve that resides over the inspection port of your fly wheel, and as you stated the various hoses that go with it. If you pull yor dash and get rid of the heat exchanger then you also have a fairly significant weight savings.

Big down side is that you no longer have a heater or defroster. While normally not a problem on a track car, if you do drive in the rain make sure you have plenty of RainX .