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Taking a chance on a Chinese-made aluminum radiator for my Bugeye

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DanLewis said:
"Cleans and lubricates water pump seals"
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It was a rhetorical question. The point I was getting at is it's just hype. It does make them run cooler than antifreeze mix but there is no gain to be had from a lubrication standpoint. Antifreeze is slick enough on it's own if a coolant was able to extend seal life by any measure due to it's lubrication properties.

That being said I do like the stuff in a/c delete cars
 
PB070014.jpg

I have piles of pic's. lol. Forth generation mounted on the car. First two generations were wood.
 
P4270149a.JPG

Checking temp and airflow at idle. Air temp 140. Engine 185 at idle this test.
 
leecreek said:
Checking temp and airflow at idle. Air temp 140. Engine 185 at idle this test.
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Interesting! Is there a significant amount of air being pushed out the side vents as a result of the radiator fan sucking air into the engine compartment?

Dan
 
Oh yeah. The string looking thing was in the air flow. At idle. Warm your hand right up idling. Gets hot running down the road. Footwell cooler than when I ran it to Lake of the Ozarks for the meet in 2008. I believe, IMHO, that it helps keep the whole car cooler. My brother and I talked about this for years. But it still took me two months to make up my mind to cut the holes after I had the forth generation ready to go in..hahahaha...
If you have a front tilt bonnet, try putting a short block of wood on top of the battery to make a 1" gap across the cowling when the bonnet is closed. Drive it and put your hand in that airflow.
 
leecreek said:
Oh yeah. The string looking thing was in the air flow. At idle. Warm your hand right up idling. Gets hot running down the road. Footwell cooler than when I ran it to Lake of the Ozarks for the meet in 2008. I believe, IMHO, that it helps keep the whole car cooler. My brother and I talked about this for years. But it still took me two months to make up my mind to cut the holes after I had the forth generation ready to go in..hahahaha...
If you have a front tilt bonnet, try putting a short block of wood on top of the battery to make a 1" gap across the cowling when the bonnet is closed. Drive it and put your hand in that airflow.
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Although not cheap, I found that Summit Racing has some really nice looking universal fender vents:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sse-950-73002 and https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sse-950-73000

Dan
 
I dont have the fresh air tube on my heater so the lowest setting is vents open, fan off. :hammer:

I've been wanting to cut for vents but cant bring myself to actually do it. I dont think it'd look good on a RB car anyway.

Instead of thr summit vent, you could rod something off of as late model whatchamacallit from a scrap yard for prob'ly not very much.
 
Looked at vents a long, long time on the web, even ended up with some corvette ones somewhere around here. But the ones I made are similar to the ones on the Ralley Healeys, just a lot smaller. Kelly, didn't BMW's have a narrow, long one? that might look good on a late model. Randy on the Healey forum made some for his car and has a write up somewhere on the web about them. That's where I got my pattern off of.
 
leecreek said:
Kelly, didn't BMW's have a narrow, long one? .
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That (M3) and the Z3 is what supposedly started the trend again. I believe the Z3 can be transplanted. Problem with the M3 is just the bar part is removable. There's no clean way to transfer the hole over. Might as well cut your own hole and vent bars.


Randy's are nice.
 
DanLewis said:
The new aluminum radiator arrived today. I have it installed and took a short drive, but the results are inconclusive given that the high today was only about 70F. The forecast is for warmer weather this weekend, so I'll update everyone once the weather is a bit warmer.]


So, whats the verdict?
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Hi Fred,

DanLewis said:
The new aluminum radiator arrived today. I have it installed and took a short drive, but the results are inconclusive given that the high today was only about 70F. The forecast is for warmer weather this weekend, so I'll update everyone once the weather is a bit warmer.
Click to expand...

TulsaFred said:
So, whats the verdict?
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Today would have been a reasonable day to see how well the new radiator cools, given the warmer weather, but I had a radiator hose blow out on me last night. I've ordered a replacement from Moss this morning, but it will probably take a couple of days to arrive.

First impressions are that it cools better while cruising, but the engine temp still tends to climb at idle. I've also ordered some header wrap to cut down on heat buildup in the engine compartment - maybe that will fix the problem at idle.

I do think the busted radiator hose probably had something to do with the new radiator. It came with its own radiator cap. It's one of those newer "mini" designs, so I couldn't use my old one and I think the new one probably has too high a pressure limit. I'd tell you what that limit is, but it's marked as "1.1" - whatever that means! Eventually I want to find (or make) a "blanking" cap (no pressure relief) because I have an expansion tank that's connected to the radiator overflow hose and there's a 12 pound cap on the expansion tank.

I'll post more information as soon as I get the hose replaced.

Dan
 
David_Doan said:
The 1.1 is BAR instead of PSI. 1 BAR = 1 atmosphere = 14.5 PSI. Your new cap is about 16 PSI. With new hoses you should be fine. that's a very normal value on modern cars.
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Thanks, David! I guess an old dog can still learn new tricks! :smile-new:

Dan
 
David_Doan said:
The 1.1 is BAR instead of PSI. 1 BAR = 1 atmosphere = 14.5 PSI. Your new cap is about 16 PSI. With new hoses you should be fine. that's a very normal value on modern cars.
Click to expand...

Any idea how high the boiling point would be at 16PSI???

Kurt.
 
Thanks Dan.
 
leecreek said:
Think it was the M5 type. like these. https://www.ebay.com/itm/08-09-10-B...DER-SIDE-VENT-GRILLE-/370815807383#vi-content But I figured them to be too large for me..Might be able to cut them down tho.......
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Those are similar to the M3, they snap into another piece of plastic that goes around the hole. It's the same deal, no clean way to transfer the hole. The hole in the fender has a step down for the outer piece to sit in. You'd have to cut the hole out of a BMW fender to make it work/look right. If you're gonna do all that, might as well fab your own up.

What abour Rover vents?
 
kellysguy said:
Those are similar to the M3, they snap into another piece of plastic that goes around the hole. It's the same deal, no clean way to transfer the hole. The hole in the fender has a step down for the outer piece to sit in. You'd have to cut the hole out of a BMW fender to make it work/look right. If you're gonna do all that, might as well fab your own up.

What abour Rover vents?
Click to expand...

These made by Street Scene are designed as Rover replacements, but (I think) are bolted in rather than snapped in, which should make fitting them to other cars easier:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sse-950-73002

Dan
 
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