Tech Request. Radiator in the back guys

[Hellbilly_Buzzard]

I have seen that a couple of ya’ll have done this. I plan on running a pretty beefy 454 in my ’36 sedan. This motor won’t leave me a place for the radiator with a sectioned grill shell and since I will have plenty of room inside…...

A tech on this would be nice.

[manyolcars]

I have always wondered if its necessary to add an electric water pump in order to get the water to the rear of the car and back. Anyone know?

[Slag Kustom]

it can be done on a chevy with out an extra pump. you want to ad a little deflector to push the air up into the radiator area. you dont need much of an opening for the air to get in but a lager outlet is needed to let the heat out.

[57wagon]

Would you want to put an electric fan on the radiator also?? And install a regular fan on the motor??

I wouldn't mind trying something like this on my model t

[junk runner jr]

I have never done it but I am thinking a mechanical fan on the engine would not be of any value. An elctric fan on the radiator would be essential.

[Slag Kustom]

electric fan on the radiator controled by a temp sensor in the manifold is a must.

[Hellbilly_Buzzard]

bttt

[Hellbilly_Buzzard]

I guess nobody wants to give up any secrets. I guess I will post a tech on this when I figure it out on my own. I have a throw away 350 I will try this on. I should have a complete tech posted within the next couple of months when i figure it out.

[HotRodHon]

Wish I had some info to give but I dont.
But please do post your set up.

Craig http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Revhead]

If I were gonna do this here's what I'd try.

First there's got to be an "in" and "out" for the air. It will have to have a shroud and the highest CFM electric fan setup you can fit.

No fan on the engine, regular WP or a higher flow one.

I'd run tubing from front to back and keep the hoses a minimal length.

For the air inlet (assuming i don't use the trunk) I'd cut a rectangular hole in the trunk pan and make a scoop on the underside, or a spoiler. A smooth flowing box or fan shroud to the radiator and then louvers or mesh or something out the back.

Read this guys stuff about his corvair. He put in a jag v-12 with a rear mounted radiator.

jaguair (http://www.corvaircorsa.com/V-12-07.html)

[metalshapes]

I dont know it this will help, but all the "Rear cooled" production cars that I can think of ( both Air and Water cooled ) pulled the air in from the top or the sides, and dumped the hot air under the car.
The reason might be that the air can be a lot hotter near the Blacktop, but also the air could be very turbulent by the time it reaches a scoop near the rear of the car...

[DrJ]

I talked to a guy at the Goodguys Nostalgia Drags in Lost Wages who was running a stock '40 Chevy radiator and a second radiator in the front fender inner panel where he'd cut out the louvers that are usually there to let the hot air out.
That's where the original Morris Minis had their radiator, in the front fender inner panel, with the air going in the grill and exiting out the fender well.
Some rear engine Fiats ran the radiator in the rear fender well also. (I had a Fiat 850 Spyder this way)
Seems even with a cut down radiator you could run a second or even three radiators with two fender well mounted.
That is as long as you arent running headers out the fender.

I don't think you need to worry about the stock water pump pumping as long as you are running a closed system with a surg/overflow system so that there is no air in the system. Lots of mid and rear engine cars have front radiators so the reverse should work as far as water flow is concerned.

---------------------------------

I was measuring a GM heater core the ther day and decided it would only take 6 of them to equal a typical Mustang radiator...line the frame with them??? and run multiple Mikuni carburetors.. How many did we decide was necessary five years ago??
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[metalshapes]

Doc, you are right about the Mini's,
but with all the Rear Engined Fiats I have owned ( about 20 or so ) the air came in from the top into a Vbelt driven fan and into the engine ducting with theyr air cooled Engines ( Fiat 500 ) or forward through the radiator with the water cooled ones ( Fiat 600 and Fiat 850 Sedan, Coupe and Spider ).
then the air came out the side of the engine on the air cooled ones, and with ducting under the radiator on the water cooled ones.
In both cases the air followed a S shaped path down through the rear or the car...
If I remember right VW's work pretty much the same way.
And it has been to long ago since I have seen a Corvair, a NSU, a Hillman Imp or a BMW 700 up close to remember how they did it...

Edit,
I just remembered a couple of rear Engined Simca's I have worked on.
They were the same as the water cooled Fiats...

[RocketDaemon]

would probally rather push away air from the engine forward would probally be best if in that case the fan was turned around and drove air towards the engine, that would probally not hurt... but running a fan stock would probally do more harm then good..

[TooMany2count]

the fiat x19 had the radiator in the front & didnt the Pontiac Fiero have the radiator in the front also??? i do remember a friend have a x19 & they used 2inch metal tubing to route the cooling system from the mtr to the radiator. so i can't see why ya can't do it. i would think the only upgrade i would do is a high volume water pump.
but personally i would mount some kinda of electric fan in front of your mtr also if your running a closed hood.. think about it, when you shut the mtr down what does it become????? a huge heat sink under the hood & any moving air will help cool the block down, i used a regular old wind up 110volt timer switch on my fan for our 40 chevy just so i could let the fan run for 5-10 minutes after i would shut it down if i wanted to. &&& you can see the difference in temp in the mtr when restarting it even after having the fan run just a few minutes.hell do it to the radiator fan also... just a thought....joe

[Rand Man]

Hellbilly,
I can design a shell and tube heat exchanger for you. It could fit into that space you don't think you have, up front. The front is the best place to cool your car. It will be hard to pull fresh air into the trunk area on your '36.

[metalshapes]

Do a google search for Nic Mann.
It will show you articles and pictures of a Turbocharged, Rover powered Morris Minor.
It was a street driven Hillclimb car that also took the title for the quickest street car in britain. (11.51/130)
The Radiator was in the rear, because the engine bay was filled with a 500HP Rover V8 ( buick 215 ) and intercooler.

[SamIyam]

We installed a radiator in our digger for the Palmdale event... maybe someone has some pics??

Anyway... I made a box to mount an old stock car aluminum radiator in the bed of the digger... it was open in the front and had an electric fan sitting on top of the radiator to pull air through it.

We installed one of those cheap ($150) electric water pumps on the motor... if it was going to be permanent, I would have used an in-line pump. They are more expensive, but are a little less unsightly.

We then used a thermostat holder/water neck/radiator cap mounter (available through Summit) on the manifold. From that we ran 1.5 water hose down to a copper street elbow and a piece of copper tubing that ran to where the starter is. Incedentally, one of the starter bolts was removed to hold a support for the copper pipe.

From there, we ran some water hose that we picked up at a local hose shop. It was good for 250 degrees and the psi we were running...

The hoses snaked through the chassis and went up by the rear end and then connected to some more copper pipe, that in turn connected to the radiator via some stubby pieces of radiator hose.

We also ran a pet-cock on the radiator at it's highest point and welded the original radiator cap bung hole up. This enabled us to bleed all the air out of the system... even then we had to fill it with the front end jacked up.

The system works flawlessly... we were able to hammer the hell out of the car down the strip and then drive it back to the pits. This system would work GREAT on a street car.

I might try to go with some 1.25 or 1" i.d. hose though... what we have is a little over kill.

I would show you some pics... but I just pulled the system out to swap the car over to alcohol injection.

Sam.

[ray]

shoot for an intake opening of roughly 1/4 the area of the radiator, you want high velocity air coming in, then slowing down to pass thru the core to most effictivly cool. then an exit as large as possible, ideally as large as the rad itself. you could have several feet of ducting if necessary and not really hurt things. make sure there are no leaks, go with the small intake, and it will cool well, what happens is people try to go with a big funnel looking intake opening, which causes turbulance etc. i also like the idea of the fan being farther away from the rad, say at the intake opening, that way instead of creating high pressure and high turbulence at the core itself where the fan is mounted directly in front, also dead zones in the corners, the fan farther away will create a smoother more even pressure over the whole radiator core. also maybe see about using aluminum tubing to run the length of the car, it would act as a radiator too. i would suggest two temp guages too, one at the rad so you know whats going on back there, actually if i did it i would have temp probes in various spots, at least for setup.

[Hellbilly_Buzzard]

[ QUOTE ]
Hellbilly,
I can design a shell and tube heat exchanger for you. It could fit into that space you don't think you have, up front. The front is the best place to cool your car. It will be hard to pull fresh air into the trunk area on your '36.


[/ QUOTE ]

I might have to take you up on that. How much $$$ damage will that be? You can PM me if you'd perfer. It will still be a few months before I get to that part. I just like to have most of the problem solved before I get there.

[flt-blk]

[ QUOTE ]
Hellbilly,
I can design a shell and tube heat exchanger for you. It
could fit into that space you don't think you have, up
front. The front is the best place to cool your car. It
will be hard to pull fresh air into the trunk area on
your '36.

[/ QUOTE ]

What kind of heat exchanger are you making, is it like the
flared copper tube project Smokey had going?

I need to find a radiator for my S2D project, but a custom
heat exchanger might be "cool" depending on the price.
TZ

[recycler]

I'm going to be mounting a rad in the front of the bed on my 38 pu. Haven't decided upright or laying down. I am also going to be using a AC condensor but I might have room to put it and a tranny cooler in the front. This is a good post- good info and viewpoints. I hope it goes to the tech board.

[Rand Man]

The shell and tube design is common in industrial refrigeration and air conditioning. The simplest explanation is that I could design a copper tank that will fit into your space. This tank would have many copper tubes running through it. An electric fan would draw air through the tubes. You may have heard of a similar concept marketed under the name "heat sponge". I believe my design would have better water and airflow than theirs.

As far as price is concerned, I think the $600.00 to $700.00 range is pretty cheap for this type of thing. That much copper is expensive and its very time consuming. Each job is a custom fabrication. I wouldn’t know for sure until I took a look at each job.

[krooser]

Don't forget...You gotta use a bleeder at the highest point of the cooling system to get rid of the air or it will nwever be cool.