radiator caps, cooling system pressure

Ashton Crusher · 2013-04-21T22:21:32+00:00

I was thinking of putting a higher pressure cap on one of my cars to increase the factor of safety against boiling. Looking thru the web for info on the likelihood of changing from 7 psi to 13 psi causing leaks I found little on that issue but did find a couple references to the pressures created by the water pump. One site boasts of a 19 PSI, $25 cap to get you thru your "hard driving". Thought I'd see if anyone else has heard of this. The claim was that the water pump could create over 30 PSI of pressure. Since that is double the normal operating pressure of most modern cars I find it hard to believe. If the system was at full 15 psi of pressure while the car is idling and then your floored it and ran it up to near redline and created another 30psi of additional pump pressure, or even 10 psi of additional pressure downstream at the radiator cap, you would immediately cause the system to have to vent to the overflow to relieve this higher pressure. I've never seen a car vent due to me revving the engine up while I'm working on it. Thoughts?????