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Radiator mounting


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I searched, and found a couple of good ideas, but still need some more.

 

I've got a griffin radiator, which has no mounting holes or anything. I had originally built a cradle for the bottom of it and rivited a piece of angle to the lip on top and mounted it in the stock location....which worked OK for around town, but I went to the track and I can make about 3 laps before coolant temp goes to 230 and oil temp to 290. I think the problem is getting the air out of the engine bay to make it a lower pressure area than in front of the radiator...so that air can pass through it at high speed. 500hp makes a lot of heat too.

 

I decided to lean the radiator forward and make a vent in the hood like BlueOvalZ, but I just can't come up with a good clean way to mount the radiator and my oil cooler. I started by building a frame for the radiator to sit in out of angle, but it looked pretty crappy so I cut it all out and started welding brackets onto the radiator. My aluminum welding skills leave a lot to be desired. I think it will be functional, but it still looks like ♥♥♥♥, so I'm planning on cutting it all out and starting over. Upper and lower core supports are already cut out (the lower one was pretty beat), and I replaced the lower with a piece of 1x2 rect. tubing. This came out nicely.

 

Does anyone have detailed pics of radiator mounting in a succesful cooling system for a track car?

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I can't say succesful since it my car has never been out on a road course, but I attached a picture of what I did. My cooler is really for a transmission, but it could easily have been an engine oil cooler as well. I also relocated the filter up front as well. Note there is a condensor for ac in between the cooler and the radiator. The 280zx turbos had the cooler mounted in the passenger wheel well, but if you are going to do that I would put a screen over it to keep rocks from dinging it up unless you run a stacked plate style cooler like the B+M ones.

z car 2 006_thumb.JPG

car pics 027_thumb.JPG

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Well, I aborted the idea of mounting the radiator on an angle becuase I couldn't come up with anyplace to put the oil cooler, and it made the lower hose fitting on the radiator level with the water pump fitting, and figuring out the hose would be a problem. So I'm back to mounting it just like I had it, but a little differently. I was pissed off at myself for almost destroying a perfectly good radiator because my aluminum TIG skills suck, so I spent the whole day welding aluminum. I got a lot better at it, and I've got some decent mounts now. I also might have stiffened up the front end a little bit. Here's pix.

 

datsunrad005.jpg

datsunrad004.jpg

datsunrad003.jpg

datsunrad002.jpg

datsunrad001.jpg

 

I didn't like that top mount so I made a better one...and here's another picture of the finished framework:

 

datsunrad007.jpg

datsunrad006.jpg

 

 

 

The welding isn't the best, but its better than it was yesterday...I probably went through a pound of filler. The top piece doubles as a duct....I'm going to fill in the holes in the morning and make some sheet metal for the front of it. I've also still got to mount the oil cooler, then figure out how to get all the air out from under the hood. I'm gonna try to to take some of the air from to top half of the radiator out through a hood scoop, then maybe I can build a couple boxes to catch the bottom corners and use 5 inch dryer hose to vent that somewhere. I'll take off the little access hatches too. I could cut a hole in the firewall on the passenger side and duct it out the passenger window, but I'd like to avoid doing that if I can.

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  • 1 year later...

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