I just picked up a lovely new rad from Donnington,the thing is, it fits better if I turn it through 90 degrees of the orientation that it was designed for.
Will this cause any probs??

ATB
Paul

not sure, part of the current is from convection as the water wants to flow down as it gets cold, i guess the pump would be ok alone. Would the tubes in the rad be horizontal?

On second thoughts it probably doesnt matter...

I can't think of any reason why it would matter, but I've never seen a production car with a rad with vertical tubes - production cars don't normally do something for no reason - but then it could just be a kind of unwritten convention that no-ones seen the need to change??

cars have horiz and vertical flow thro rads. Im pretty sure my jag v12 was side flow. I cant see a problem as long as you dont get air locks.

I am surprised. All the rads I've seen have vertical tubes - my 3 cars all do. Usually if you look into the filler cap you can see the ends of the tubes.

Surely the most critical thing is where the filler cap is - and you want any gas to collect at the top and blow out through the exp bottle .

pic of a jag rad...
Rescued attachment rad.jpg

.......Once upon a time radiators had vertical tubes, But of late, the fashion seems to be horizontal tubes.....

The modded Cortina rad that I have on my car has vertical tubes, but I am changing to a Polo rad during the winter, which has horizontal tubes.

vertical down flow radiators are more efichient because the hot water gose in at the top as it cools it is les dense so it will naturally drop down the tubes.
Therefor there is less resitance to flow this maximises the heat tranference.
The higher the rad the grater the effect
old radiators were tall and and thin ideal for this process(designed like that for this reason.
Some rads go the other way because you can mount it low and long (smaller forntal area for arodynamic purpases) it is not such a advantage to have the tubes mouted vertical because of the short pipe lenth.

THEY SHOULD HAVE A SPELL CHECKER ON FORUMS. Sorry about the spelling on some of my posts.

quote:

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Originally posted by rell
THEY SHOULD HAVE A SPELL CHECKER ON FORUMS. Sorry about the spelling on some of my posts.

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Personally I've never seen a rad with horizontal tubes.

In Tune to win (I think) Carroll Smith had a diagram of a mod to a racing radiator that he recommended.
Seemed the radiators he used were all horizontally piped. He reckoned you should make one end both the in and the out, and put a block halfway across the tank, so the water was forced to travel the length of the radiator twice. Seem to recall the block didn't have to be 100%, just mostly there.
(does that make sense or does it need a picture?)


- Greg H

Horizontal flow rads are more efficient than the old convection flow vertical (pre water pump) type due to reduced temperature gradient across the rad.
A lot of modern rads are of the multipass type now and certainly the high performance ones are (much like an oil cooler).

Terry

Everything as above - but you have to be a little bit carefull with double pass type rads (by far the best option for a small space eg a '7' type car though) if only because they tend to have a denser core than the old style single pass radiators and as air has a tendancy to choose the least path of resistance you wil probably need a bit of simple ducting to make sure air is going through the rad rather than around it.

Cheers

Dave