Full radiator, water to air intercooler and larger pusher fan

Rpdboss

Registered User
I have the radiator from a 94 tbird lx and with a few alterations it will fit by tommaro, as for the fan i already have that, just gotta mount it. For the water to air intercooler i'm going to use some aluminum from the machine/cnc shop i work at and build a maze/jacket to wrap it in, plumb some fitting and a 1gph 12v pump, a good size tranny cooler and a radiator resivour it should be done soon, pics to come as well:)
 
modified the radiator

to get past my intercooler so that the hose can pass around the intercooler on the drivers side i had to notch the battery tray, grind the small 1/4 ribs off the side of the output collector of the radiator, grind off the bottom rail of aluminum so the radiator can sit 3/4 inch lower. Now I gotta go outside to burn in the sun and drill the peg holes for the new radiator location which will be closer to the a/c heat exchanger and 1 1/2 inch to the drivers side, then i should sit in there just fine.
 
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Its in there with 3 extra inches on the width!!

Now i'm almost done with the hoses, the bottom one i have to fabricate out of 3 hoses to make some bends and good flow angles., hardware store didnt carry copper elbows that big, Tommaro I'll get out the cam finally and let you guys see what i'm doing,
 
Intercooler

Im assuming you boxed in the factory Intercooler and you are converting it to a liquid to air? If so Its been done (Never heard the results though)
 
stock water intercooler

The plan is to box in the inter cooler using CNC (I am a CNC machinist ) machined plates that will channel the water thru one row of fins, front to back, bridge over to the next row then back to front like ribbon candy till all he rows have been used. pretty easy once i get the measurements, do some math and make the slots exactly the same size and whatever depth works well. Then I'll use my pick of two 12v water pumps feeding a line which will feed in to a T, from there to two lines going into the ic (jacket) spaced about 1/3 and 2/3 the length of the ic for even distribution, then collect it the reverse way then to a external tranny cooler ( 8x10) then to a resevoir somewhere probably where the air intake silencer was. get a good size tank and one with a opening large enough for good size ice cubes for extra cooling. Maybe if I get some real themo results with two temp sensors I may sell the another whole converted IC for some extra cash, have one pre-made for a no wait sale.
 
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Here's the pics everyone wants to see, not finished yet

The first picture is one of the radiator installed with room for yet a larger one still. The second is a pic of why the battery tray had to be notched to allow for the furthest placement of the radiator outlet to cleat the IC. The third is from the bottom of where I had to drill new location holes and a clear view of the outlet hose clearance. The fourth is of the custom hose made of an old SC bottom hose, the 94 lx bottom hose and an elbow I cut from another. Last pic is of the small ribs i ground off to allow for a flush placement right next to the metal radiator frame inside the engine bay and the upper mounts that had to be removed, you can also see how the bottom metal rail was removed to allow for a closer fit to the a/c heat exchanger due to height issues. I'll post the rest of the pics after work. Advice and comments welcome
 

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Morepics for size comparison

the larger fans are what i'm going to mod in
 

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maybe I should go back the the junk yard and get that lincoln radiator

I ran into a problem with the fan placement, can t even get the stock sc fan to fit between the IC and the intake side of the radiator, Maybe two slim puller fans, well i'll think of something. UPDATE Ok so I cut 1/2 inch off the surround shroud to allow it to fit closer to the radiator, still looks like an issue with the exhausted air movement. Maybe place two of the largest puller fans i can fit behind the radiator. Well maybe i'll use the full Lincoln setup on my other 94 which will be a 5spd this summer. (money still available)
 
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It finally in there, now for the water ic setup

I had to remove 1/2 inch of the fan shrouding to make the fan setup slimmer so it would slip between the radiator and i/c. Well that made problems with the fan rubbing on the radiator. so i had to grind off the rivets holding the fan motor and use large spacers on bolts to set the fan further/deeper into the fan shrouding, and adjust it for trueness. So when it was in and installed i made temporary mounting out of wire (till its proves it abilty to cool) , filled it with coolant (2 1/4 gallons), took it for a drive. Wow I had a hot running SC before but this is much better. Needle never moved passed the N on norm, didnt even reach N. romped on it good with hard passes. Found a nice snowmobile on the side othe the road for sale, left the SC ideling for 25 min.I felt the pipe after the thermostat; hot but not where i needed to pull my hand away and yep the thermostat cycled a few times as the inlet side of the radiator was hot as well.Much better that the stock one so far. If I ever need to go back stock I have all the unmolested parts.
 
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Whats the stock Radiator capacity?

Brillant me forgot to measure how much the old stock setup held. When I filled the new one I filled the Res to the cold line, then filled the radiator with the vent plug open,started it and let it burb some more, still sucking in some more as i drive, about an inch from the cold fill line every time. But figureing in that its about 2 1/4 gallons
 
I'm confused on how you were able to install the larger radiator and still retain the stock intercooler location. Did you located the radiator further towards the front of the car and now the intercooler is blocked by the radiator core ?

David
 
Yes the radiator blocks the IC

But the larger fan also pushes (exhausted) air thru half of the IC in its stock location. Yes the radiator is located about an 1 inch cloiser to the a/c's heat exchanger.
 
He plans on making the IC a Liquid to air unit so it wouldnt matter however there wouldnt be much airflow going through that part of the radiator once that IC is boxed in
 
I wouldnt call it simply boxing it in

I have to create a set of plates with channels that run up and down using mastercam 9 to run on one of the CNC machines at work. I'll try to print out a rought draft as to where I currently stand. If the machines are too busy with inportant military aircraft parts i'll have to make them manually on the Bridgeport (complex drill press with 3 planes of movement). I'll post it sometime after work. P.S. I'm drving from ny to iowa and back the week of the 4th, plan on being in the ohio tbird meeting on my way back, no bird though
 
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