i live by las vegas so desert temps....my 455 engine is pretty much stock i have a 700 r4 auto trans and i will have air conditioning.. the area i have for a radiator is 24 inches wide by 24 or so tall i plan on running a electric fan.. so how many core? what size tubes? ect...i just dont want to over heat...any help would be great! thanks
My convert has a Griffin crossflow 3 rows of tubes that is 26 or 27 wide and 17 tall it runs cool here in Nebraska. We have 100 degree days, but not at all like Vegas
Aluminum as a starting point. The bigger the better....as in more SURFACE area for the core..... Wider/taller. If you start stacking tubes beyond 2 (double row), the heat from the forward most will carry back to the rear most tubes, hot air over hot coolant tubes......electric fan be damned. Hot air over hot coolant/tubes is not going to cool. Add an a/c condensor and the equation compounds itself. Use a remote or separate trans cooler......keep the heat from the transmission out of the radiator. An aluminum radiator should NOT use epoxy or such at the point of tanks to core....it holds the heat. A fully tig welded unit is your best bet. I've used AFCO with good success. Nothing smaller than 1" tubes (most common), better choice would be 1.25 or 1.50 tubes.....more capacity. Cooling fins 12-14 per inch. SHROUD for the fan, so the air it moves is forced to cross the tubes and fins. I prefer a PULLER fan. Shoot for 190-200* at idle/in traffic, hopefully with a/c on. Good luck
thank you im writting this down...so boogeracng are you saying go with a 2 core? ive had people tell me 2 row with bigger tubes and a fan and alls good..but some say 4 core nothing else.. but i am going to go with cross flow and not down flow because ive heard thats better,,the more info i get the better choice i will make..thanks again
Yes, a crossflow will cool better. My 455 cools fine on hot Nebraska days with the Griffin crossflow, I have A/C use a good shroud, and a separate trans cooler
All things equal such as surface area, construction material and fin design, there is no difference in cooling performance between a cross flow and down flow radiator. Where the differences start to add up, depends on what kind of car you have and what kind of space you have to work with.
Coolant type choices will help to shed the heat too. I'd like some kind of anticorrosive matl. if I'm using AL and Cast Iron. Rick; I'm taking a wild guess here, as coolant might prefer a slow trip thru the radiator, vs. a narrow "tank end" and rapid passage thru the core? A question of crossflow vs. conventional with tall, or wide frontal areas.
so 2 core 3core or 4 core? whats everyones choice and how thick should my radiator be 2 half inch 3 inch?
I'd like to pass along something we tried that might help others. When we picked up Dan's new motor at the race shop that built it, he carries Lucas Products......oil, gear lube, etc. We bought two bottles of Lucas Super Coolant , one for Dans car and one for my 27. I put it in my car and the temp went from 190 to 170 and won't go higher, but I had also installed a new radiator, so that might have been a factor. But Dan made no changes to his car, other than the Lucas stuff, and his temp has gone from 200 down to 170, sometimes even 160. No matter what we did before, we could never get it under 200, but as soon as he put the Lucas in, it dropped 30 degrees, even on the hottest day here in Florida. We have gone for long drives and also let it idle in traffic for extended periods, and it stays at 170. I shot his block with a heat gun and it reads the same.....170.. We were back at the race shop yesterday, buying some parts, and I picked up another bottle for my Son Don's T bucket. It has always stayed at 190, so I am anxious to see what it does for his car. Here is the product I am talking about: http://lucasoil.com/products/problem-solvers-utility/super-coolant Don
You are welcome. Every little bit helps. We have become a fan of PRC aluminum radiators and SPAL electric fans. Maybe not traditional, but we build our cars to drive and not worry about overheating. Those dimensions you quoted for your fan are pretty generous, you should have no problem having someone build you a radiator thick enough to do the job. A shroud and the biggest SPAL fan you can fit in there will help, especially with ac. As we recently discussed on another thread, spend a few extra bucks on the radiator and it will pay dividends. Those 455's are not easy to cool, but Dan is cooling one with a smaller radiator than yours, so you should be ok. Don
Copper transfers heat almost twice as fast as aluminum at 250 degrees. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html
It is more complex than just copper vs aluminum, there are other factors that effect cooling. Core design has a huge impact on how efficient a radiator is because the heat is actually transferred where the fins are connected to the tubes. These are called heat transfer points, and the more you have the more heat that is removed from the radiator. The reason aluminum became popular initially was because of two factors: Cost is less than copper, and radiators had to become smaller due to smaller cars and engine compartments. The Japanese developed a system where they could get more tubes into a radiator, and that is why aluminum radiators were able to handle the loads they were asked to handle, and still remain compact. All that being said, although I like aluminum radiators and use them when I can, I had to go copper with the new one I had made for my 27. No one would build me one that small and feel that it would cool my motor, and that includes companies who made copper and aluminum radiators. Don
Putting more tubes closer together with more fins works well if the radiator is operating in a clean environment like a hospital operating room. In the real world, there is debris that plugs up the tightly spaced fins. No air flow, no cooling. They do the same with air conditioning condensers for your home. Fluff from dandelions and some trees will plug them up rather quickly. They make what is called a cotton core radiator that has widely spaced tubes and was developed for use in cotton mills and garment factories where fluffy dust is a big problem. They cool as well as the closely spaced tube cores and much better in dirty environments.
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