The roadster's been on hold for awhile while I get other projects outta the way but I'm about ready to get back into it. One of my big concerns is radiator placement. Right now I have a Geo Metro rad mounted and after much pondering, I came to the conclusion.........no way is it gonna work! It's a 2-row and it's tiny! Granted, I'm not running a hemi but the turbo 4 does produce it's fair share of heat. There's no room in front of the rad 'cause the space in the nose is taken up by the intercooler and a massive spring perch. Can't really move the motor back due to firewall clearance and motor mounts are already welded in. As the Geo rad sits, there's just enough room to mount a small puller fan. Definitely, not enough girth! Then I got to thinkin'. I've seen guys run rear mounted rads. It always seemed kinda hokey to me but now it's making some sense! I've got a ton of room under the gas tank where I could fit a monster rad and elec fan in that space. Maybe form some sort of air dam underneath to scoop air directly to it? Or, I could drop the tank down lower and run the rad and fan up top. The car will have a decklid. Do I need to worry about venting hot air? What does everyone think? I'm looking for input. Is it feasible or am I way off the mark here?
Air flow is one to think about and not just relying on the electric fan to direct air flow to the radiator. Also the distance the water pump has to push the coolant. The longer from standard the less it will flow, the pumps impeller will start to aerate the coolant. Water flow is like electrical flow, the longer the wire the more resistance, you need bigger wire or more voltage. So your pipes and hoses will need to be larger with no tight corners so the coolant flows easily. If you want to try this effect get two pieces of garden hose, one shot and one longer, fill them both with water and blow it out and see the difference in the resistance. Good luck, I like your build. JW
If you are going to run that grille, I'd have a custom radiator built that will use all of the available space. selecting a radiator based on the fact that it fits under the hood is not the best method IMHO. I'd ask a custom radiator craftsman for their opinion. It looks to me like there is a lot of wasted space around the radiator.
Tommy has a good point, can we have some more pics of the nose area. There seems to be a lot of heavy framework in that nose.JW
Yeah, it's pretty full! The U-bracket stays, that's the nose support. I could probably do something with the uprights if I had too. The rad is right up against the back of the spring perch. And, you can see how restricted the airflow is with the I/C in place. There's also the intercooler piping to contend with! Even with a custom built rad, I don't see how it'd fit within those confines.
Trying to work out a plan to keep the radiator where it should be. How much more forward does the water pump and pulleys etc come ? Im thinking you could have a custom radiator close to the motors frontal extremities, it would need to be a thick core and use a pusher fan with some ducting from under the intercooler. Need to know how much room there is between where the front of the radiator is now and where the forward part of the motor is. JW
Alot of places for the air to get lost in the current design. The intercooler mounts to the front side of wishbone I take it. Close the sides, bot and top all the way to the radiator install the biggest cfm puller electric fan (lot of people here dislike the electric fan) with shroud and give a go, I think it will work. Now on another note, if you have 12 inches between front of block and face of radiator mechanical fan would work providing the work inside shroud was closed in, but I am not familiar with that four cylinder configuration
Is this an air to air inter-cooler or a air to liquid inter -cooler? Either way think dual plenum style. Are those blue 90 degree els 4" rd with 3" radius throats? They look like they can be altered to different throat length giving more room for a larger plenum.
Front of the motor to rad is pretty tight, too. With pump and pulleys installed I've got 3-1/2" to 4" between the front of the w/p pulley and radiator. I'm using the TurboCoupe I/C because I have it. Trying not to spend a ton of $$. Budget build, ya know. I've been looking for a smaller I/C. Maybe something like this that I could mount in a 2 o'clock/7 o'clock position in front of the rad as that's the only way it would fit inside the nose. http://www.ebay.com/itm/27-X5-5-X2-...Parts_Accessories&hash=item232c80a027&vxp=mtr Intercoolers really aren't that critical on the street but I really like the looks of the piping extending forward. The cool factor makes a big difference, IMHO. This is the piping on the motor right now...............
What I see here is a plenum inside a plenum. Get as much air around the intercooler to the radiator, cut off as much of that flange on the inter-cooler as you possibly can, looks like the most will come from the bottom of the inner cooler. Closed plenum just like the inter cooler theory. Use the puller fan, Spal makes a 16" puller heavy duty, 3.39 inches thick. I know Vintage air part # is 287016-VUR. It will pull 3000 cfm thru the inter-cooler and around it. If you move either the inter-cooler or radiator to the back of the car an electric fan still comes into play. I see the cost of a fan and alot of work either way. You are designing a one off system so there to me will be no definitive answer on the performance until you do it and run driving tests. If this fails start with one louver between the inter-cooler and radiator in the outside plenum and add as necessary, my thoughts are you won't need them
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