will this work?

i have limited space and these are thinner and have aluminium tanks thus making modification easier but will they give good engine cooling?

I have a feeling the restriction would be far too high. It would very easily get blocked with limescale and/or rust.

Personally I wouldnt risk the overheating issues.

Nah, they have small fittings and designed to play a different game, however, bike rads come in many shapes and sizes. There must be something to fit the space you have, or you don't have enough space!

What car is it for?

How much space do you actually have?

well they seem to come in two varieties:

1) those which have one continuous pipe that runs right through and loops back and forth
2) those which resemble a water rad and have lots of tubes running across. this type seem to have both inlet and outlet at the end and the other end tank is common and the condensing gas runs left to right, through the common area, then right to left.

i can see the restriction issue with the first type as the tube is meant to take gas (which is gradually turning to liquid as it progresses) and so this continuous pipe is maybe 10mm bore.

looked at a couple of the second type at the scrappy however and the tubes look just like water rad tubes. since the tubes are parallel it would seem the restriction is no more than for a comparable water rad. i can weld 25mm pipes on to the tanks.

the rover 200 condensor is ideal size.

still not recommended? if not, i need a custom rad 550-600mm wide (tubes + tanks) and 260-280mm high.

its for the chargecooler rad on a turbo bike car - sizes as per my previous post. most rads these days have plastic tanks which dont allow for changes to where the pipe outlets are so the ally ones look much more useful.

Buy one from a scrappy, blast the hosepipe through it and see how fast it gushes out the other end!

i've got one off a m3 evo that you can have for postage if you want one to play with

many thanks for the offer but ive already looked at a few in the scrappy and to my limited knowledge the concept looks workable.

Aircon rads don't have much heat transfer capcity --- only one row of tubes.

Have you looked at an early BL Mini A series rad ? very small but with a lot of closely spaced fins, the heavy duty Cooper S version has triple tubes a bit more heat transfer capacity and has been usrd in a lot of racers. They are vertical flow but Davrian used to blank off the fillers and use them as cross flow rads.
They are copper and brass soldered construction easy to get recored or modded.
I have a standard Mk2 Mini one lying about somewhere. I'll measure it up.

Mini Cooper S 1275 rad size is 270 x 272 x 50 mm

To throw a new idea into the mix, would you consider a radiator in the boot area of the car?

I had issues with trying to cool my ZX10R turbo Mac#1, up front I have intercooler, radiator and oil cooler, the water temps were around 110 deg C, until I put a second radiator in the boot area to cool the superheated water from the turbo, the temp is now at 90 deg C while driving and it increases to 94 deg C while in traffic through the town.

The water is now pulled from the header tank, pushed through the turbo, through the radiator in the boot and then back to the header tank. I think this setup would work quite well with your chargecooler plans.

Aluminium radiator from ebay, core size 630mm wide, 200mm high, 50mm thick and a Davies Craig electric water pump to circulate the water, these small pumps are rated at 15 litres per minute..



Few brackets welded to the rad it was in the boot



Fans and pump wired through a relay to come on when ignition is switched on



Pump is connected to the outlet directly under the header tank



edited the post to add this photo of the rear panel fitted, the vent holes arent staying this way, the large/small holes will be joined together and then meshed underneath.



[Edited on 6/10/11 by SausageArm]

Description


the rad will go on the vertical rear of the car behind the diff with ducted air coming in from in front of the coilovers.

that rad in your picture looks ideal but at 630mm is just too long unfortunately. mind you si huge just to cool a turbo!