Radiator Design

Flex

Registered User
I have been looking at the aluminum radiator group buy and in looking at the design of that piece I have a question that maybe someone can answer. I have been looking at the various radiator designs and my question is, why use a downflow design instead of a crossflow?

My though is that some added cooling might be gained by having the tanks side mounted instead of top and bottom. Any thoughts or relevant data on pros vs cons?
 
Since radiators are rectangular you get more duration of heat exchanging in cross-flow. In the SC's case, the SIC or DIC setups take up the horizontal length that a crossflow benefits from.

The direction of flow for the radiator is always to be determined my it's longest dimension.
 
Casey,

Could you clarify this statement.

"In the SC's case, the SIC or DIC setups take up the horizontal length that a crossflow benefits from."

The SC rad is marginally wider than longer. For the most part, most aftermarket aluminum rads are crossflow. Even when short like our SC rad.
 
I belive the sc rad is taller then wider. Look at the area of the fins, minus the end tanks. The longer the fins and tubes the better it will cool.
 
Ok, the height measurements between the tanks is approximately 15 inches and the width from fin edge to fin edge is almost 20 inches. So the rad is wider than taller if we were to measure the cooling fins.
 
Did you substract what it would be if the end tanks where present on the sides. And Add to the top and bottom what it would be if the end tanks where not present.
 
No, that is the actually dimension of the SC rad as in my brother's 93. 20 wide by 15 high. or 300 inches square roughly.

I was looking at a common crossflow design whose core was 19 inches high by 17 inches wide. This equals 323 inches of surface area. So theoretically it has 8 & more surface area than our stock rad as well as being an aluminum rad.
 
Ford does weird things, But also take into consideration that the top and bottom tanks are somewhat hidden away from airflow since they sit behind the radiator support and not completely in front of the air path. IF the rad was the other way some of the fins would be hidden behind the rad support and no be exposed to true airflow.
 
Yes you are entirely correct and at 19 inches high, the core of this rad will be partially obscured. The question is, will the added cooling of having the tanks exposed to the incoming airflow outweigh or counterbalance and loss the other way.
 
No one else has any input? No other opinions to offer or information?

Casey you still didn't get back to me. The core of our rads are wider than tall so would we not benefit still from a crossflow design according to your statement about having more duration of heat exchanging in crossflow?
 
No one else has any input? No other opinions to offer or information?

Casey you still didn't get back to me. The core of our rads are wider than tall so would we not benefit still from a crossflow design according to your statement about having more duration of heat exchanging in crossflow?

I've been away...

I just noticed that it is a little wider than it is tall, but very insignificantly. In our case, they just added a few tubes instead of making it a cross flow and adding an inch of width.

If you have a cross-flow radiator and down-flow radiator as the same size, or close, there isn't one advantage over the other. The reason for going cross flow is that you can make a radiator longer than you can tall because of how cars are built. The reason for it's benefits isn't solely based on it's design being a cross-flow system alone. Again, the longer the radiator, the more duration of heat exchanging exists.
 
I understand what you are saying and it makes sense. In the specific dimension I am looking at between the two, the crossflow comes ahead with about 25 square inches more cooling surface. So theoretically if all else were the same, it should still cool slightly better should it not.
 
I'm running a stock LX 3.8 radiator thats a cross flow, cools things nicely, only touches the "n" when I'm in creeping traffic or realy on the boost.
 
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