Radiator suggestions/ cooling issues

[astronturbo77]

hi im looking at racing my la lancer which has a 2.6 efi turbo. some forum members may remember a post on the old forum about cooling issues in lancer with astron engines. i started out with a standard refurbished la rad, which was usless even with twin thermo fans, then i had a custon 3 core jobbie made that was taller to fill up the extra room below where the standard rad was, this rad worked ok but still ran rather warm and the twin thermos could only be fitted on the front of the support panel and just blocked off too much airflow. i may nite this was all with a davies craig electic water pump.

anyway now that the car isnt street driven and is being turned into a drift car(a proper one lol, not a cut spring special) im not too worried about keeping the grill and bumper assembly. i have a fmic that im fitting, im going to install it without the bonnet latch assembly and go with bonnet pins so that i can get the cooler up as far as possible. i want to get a suitable rad maybe out of a sigma and mod the front panel to make it fit? are there any differnt size sigma rads? i going to try and stick with a a radiator out of a lager sze capacity engine beause the engine is going to be constantly revving at sort of low speeds. alo noticed that some members are using late model statesman v8 rads?

what have other member used in their lancers? also note im going to be going back to a standard sigma water pump.

[DanTurboLancer]

Hey man, check out the Lancers Lair and R20bear has asked questions about cooling his LA also.

One of the guys has suggested a Model of Laser's Radiator fits!


Personally if you are never going to street rego it, id run pipes under the car into the boot and mount a huge Radiator there...


My LA has a Siggy Rad, probably not considered big enough, but it only has 1 12" fan and never gets hot...
But the old owner has had to chop and section the lower panels to fit it.


Personally i wouldnt abandon the Davis Craig gear for a stock Siggy water pump just yet.



And lastly, im not a Great driver, but i think you will have your hands full trying to drift with such a short wheel base.

But will be fun to watch all the same!

[stealth]

mate there are a hole heap of options here for you
first keep the factory pump
as for the rad i have used a lh torana 6cyl radiator on my astron
and wook well ,cooling system hold 8.5lt coolant
on my 6 i run a v8 statesman radiator BUT the chassis rail needs to be
notched on both sides and have to relocate battery but its ok this system holds
11.5lt coolant but with supercharger on it was getting hot so i added a header tank
with 7.5lt in it under the gaurd on passinger side now it never runs hot and can do static
skids all day(till g/box explodes anyway)
the thing is your trying to cool the kw's that your making not the "size"of your engine
so estimate how much hp/kw you are gunna have then rob a cooling system to suit
cheers stealth

[astronturbo77]

thanks for the replie guys, dan can you get some pictures of the area that needed chopping tom install you sigma rad? and yes its going to be very interesting sliding this car i just wish there were more room nder the lancer bonnets.

stealth, was the 6 cyling torana rad in a LA? im considering going back to a standard sigma water pump as the davies craig unit made the water flow too fast to absorb any heat and i had to use a thermostat with holes drilled in it.

[mic_77]

Are you still running the water pipe to the rear of the intake manifold.


cheers Mic

[DragonCypher]

What about running a sigma radiator + an oil cooler?

Thats what the g54bt Starion guys do in the US.
On the starquestclub forums you'll notice they use oil coolers more often than upgrading the radiator, but thats probably because they're all factory turbo.

[astronturbo77]

before i was running a gn factory intake manifold, but with the new setup im using a tp efi manifold with the thermostat at the back so yes i will be using a long pipe to get to the rad.

im already using a m7 head and with the gn carby manifold i noticed that the rear water jacket on the manifold was incredebly small compared to the mating hold on the head. so i think that this may have been a issue.

[DanTurboLancer]

Yeah no worries, ill take some pics for you tomoz!

It would be fairly similar for the siggy and as Stealth menthioned the Statesman or what ever large Radiator you could fit.
But ill try to take some decent pics to give you an idea of the area you will be looking at.
mine was done by the old owner, and not very neat



Ive never heard the term of cooling to be used for the Hp/Kw rather than the size of the engine, but it makes sense really.




Drilling holes in the Thermostat would have increased flow rather than restricting it which would have added to your problems wouldnt it?


With those Davis Craigs cant you buy an electrical componant that you turn a dial and it reduces the flow rate?


just a question why is it better to keep the Stock pump rather than use the electric pump?
Because i have heard mixed things

[woops]

The art of sizing radiators is never an exact science. The radiator typically has to dissipate about a third of the fuel input energy to the atmosphere which is about the same amount as the engine output power. The left over 40% of energy typically exits the engine as noise, thermal radiation form the engine and out the exhaust system.

The calculations required to design and size up a radiator involve so many variable such as the air mass flow rate, water flow rate, fin density, heat transfer rate, material conduction, frontal area etc but the factory has worked out all of those calculations roughly.

[mic_77]

I had all these issues with the standard radiator and water pump. I changed it to a pwr radiator electric pump 80l/min and a spal 16in fan and still had some issues. Then I put a fitting into the back of the intake manifold and now I struggle to get it to temp. These motors have a flow issue if they do not have water circulating into the back of the head you will always get this problem.


cheers Mic

[DragonCypher]

I had all these issues with the standard radiator and water pump. I changed it to a pwr radiator electric pump 80l/min and a spal 16in fan and still had some issues. Then I put a fitting into the back of the intake manifold and now I struggle to get it to temp. These motors have a flow issue if they do not have water circulating into the back of the head you will always get this problem.


cheers Mic

Does this mean its actually better to use front wheel drive magna intakes with an extra long upper radiator hose, rather than modding for front end thermostats?


-
Chris

[81GL]

I think what mic_77 is trying to get at, is to have coolant flow from the front & back of the head, rather than relying on convection to cool the rear of the head.

Nick.

[mic_77]

What I am saying is if you do not have the flow going into the rear the water will stagnate and start to cook the rear cylinders which inturn will cook the rest of the motor. I run a 5/8th hose to the rear of the inlet and have had zero issues since if you use the standard sigma style for evrything else it works good. You really need the flow from the rear aswell as the front.


cheers Mic

[81GL]

Where abouts are you running that hose to now? to the end of the metal pipe which runs around the back of the engine from the pump inlet?

Nick.

[astronturbo77]

What I am saying is if you do not have the flow going into the rear the water will stagnate and start to cook the rear cylinders which inturn will cook the rest of the motor. I run a 5/8th hose to the rear of the inlet and have had zero issues since if you use the standard sigma style for evrything else it works good. You really need the flow from the rear aswell as the front.


cheers Mic

can we see some pics mic

[mic_77]

pics would be irrelevent. Where you cut of the filler neck on the magna injection and weld it up just tap a fitting into it and run the hose from the water pump that normally go's around the back of the astron this will solve the flow issues.


cheers Mic

[astronturbo77]

pics would be irrelevent. Where you cut of the filler neck on the magna injection and weld it up just tap a fitting into it and run the hose from the water pump that normally go's around the back of the astron this will solve the flow issues.


cheers Mic

umm filler neck? you mean the rear thermostat where it points at the firewall when you put the manifold on a rwd? im just running a galant thermostat housing and running a lenght of rad hose to the radiator instead of putting the thermostat at the front.

[stealth]

what mick is trying to say (ive found the same problem)
is
no matter which end of the head you pull water to radiator the
other end of the head must still have a water fitting in it going to ,heater
or raditator
because water must folw constantly WHEREVER there is no flow there is a
steam pocket which will kill your head
on speedway cars we connect the whelsh plugs on the back of engine
this means remove the plugs make a bung and fit a 25mm bypass hose from
block to head (remembering thay are astron 1)
but this only applys to heavly worked engines producing 200hp plus na
and 350hp plus on turbo
which thay are very few!
cheers stealth

[astronturbo77]

i think the standard tp efi manifold has the same idea with the 5/8 heater hose that runs from the front cooland port to a vertical steel fitting to under the thermostat housing?

[DanTurboLancer]

A tutorial with photos would be great.

Seeing as ive just had over heating probs and a head let go, i dont want it to happen again

[karl_2ltgc]

After I turboed my galant the sigma radiator in their become a bit dogey, would heat up quick in traffic(still had stock engine fan) and didnt like going slow, i think the i/c blocked alot of airflow.
Now I have a volvo 7 series turbo radiator in my galant, fits nice and outlets are in the right spot but a little bit smaller but hose goes on fine so no problem. Water temp stays nice all the time even on 40 degree day wont go past 85 degrees or so.

[astronturbo77]

well i brought a sigma rad from evl076 today. got home and fitted the original water pump back on (found a brand new one in the shed lol). i put the water pump pulley on with bolts instead of the studs sticking out to allow for more clearance. ive been thinking that now i have a magna inlet manifold it should cool the head better, because its got that hose running from the front to the back of the manifold. where the rear cooland port was, i had a gn manifold and the matching port was absoultly tiny. so now i have both magna head and inlet i think it should be ok.

ive been toying with the idea of using a falcon header tank, and make a small 8mm fitting to go onto the rear thermostat housing and blocking off the top rad cap and putting a large inlet pipe on the end of the tank and run it like a falcon setup, that way it will be self bleeding. aslo going to fit the biggest thermo i can between fmic and rad. is there any better thermo fans to look out for? like brand wise? or even some sort of more powerful industrial fan?

[mic_77]

SPAL are the best that I have been able to find and the only ones that have a cfm rating.


cheers Mic

[astronturbo77]

ok guys so im a bit pissed off with the lancer at the moment because of the bloody intercooling piping so ive had to come inside and sit down lol. i was standing in the shed and scratching my head because my new 14' thermo fan wont fit in the gap between the rad support panel. i then noticed my old coupe 1600 engine stiitng on the floor and pulled off the mechanical fan to see if it will fit between the rad and engine....... and it does with na slight cut to the edge of the fits to stop them from hitting the crank nut!!!!!!! sooooo now what im thinking is to run the standard 1600 staurn fan on the water pump and the 14' thermo between the fmic and the rad.. so the thermo will push air throught the rad and the mech fan will pull it through!!!

is this going to work or just cause the air to get confused and make it hotter??

stealth and mic???? wot do you think

[stealth]

mate it will work as long as your thermo's are wired
in the correct direction all fans will be pulling air
but again make sure you run the right rad cap (for pressure)
and you wont have issues
if your in tassie its so f--king cold down there there no way she can
run hot unless theres a polar bear stuck in your cooling system trying
to keep warm
cheers stealth

[astronturbo77]

mate it will work as long as your thermo's are wired
in the correct direction all fans will be pulling air
but again make sure you run the right rad cap (for pressure)
and you wont have issues
if your in tassie its so f--king cold down there there no way she can
run hot unless theres a polar bear stuck in your cooling system trying
to keep warm
cheers stealth

haha cheers mate ive got em wired up right now and its all a really tight fit.

so far all of the following have been changed:
sigma water pump- changed for electric davies craig one.
sigma radiator
1600 mechanical fan on engine side
twin 10' thermos between fmic and rad
magna efi inlet manifold with magna head- compared to magna head with previous gn inlet and small rear water jacket that restricted the flow
thermostat at rear of head and pipe routing water to head.

what cap pressure do i need? lol things still boil in tassie

[stealth]

110 kpa will do the trick but the higher you go the
better
cheers stealth