I have set up three combustion engines to a quarry, all three of them are cooled by one pipe coming from two pumps.
P - Pump
Q - Quarry
E - Engine
P+ +--E
+-+-EQ
P+ +--E
Sometimes the engines overheat. Should I set up one pump for each engine? This sounds like a bit overhead to me.
Additional question: Where can I find detailed information on how to power machines optimally (eg how many engines do I need to optimally power machine xyz), cooling engines etc.
Best Answer
Instead of attaching the engines directly to the quarry, use conductive pipes to pipe engine energy into the quarry. I have a VERY nice setup using plain steam engines powered by coal from a self feeding glowstone dust generating system using equivalent exchange.
You put a wooden conductive pipe above the steam engine with the engine pointed up, then use stone conductive (or gold) pipes to pipe the energy into the quarry. By piping the energy off the engines, you will never run the risk of them overheating if you're using steam engines, and if your combustion engines have water then they'll be fine too.