Author Topic: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?  (Read 9869 times)

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Offline biglady112

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Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« on: November 24, 2015, 11:00:32 PM »
I have been looking at a lot of cars lately(mostly drag cars) and have been seeing an awful lot of cars not running radiators and just running surge/reserve tanks. I helped with a blown door slammer for a long time and after it was recommended to us to up our coolant capacity we stopped losing head gaskets. It worked so well it inspired me to run a large surge tank on my street driven rat rod with success.

It got the wheels turning and we are going to be addressing and updating our cooling system in our standing mile car. It is a blown four cylinder car with an iron block. If anything we will at a minimum be moving to an aluminum radiator with AN fittings and hoses. As I was looking around for ideas I started noticing that a lot of serious cars like streamliners, lakesters, competition coupes and the like don't seem to be running radiators. That is unless they are hidden, laid flat under the car, in the trunk or just not in the pictures. Two quick and famous car come to mind where I don't flat out see radiators are the Blowfish and the Speed Demon. I have also noticed on some lakesters that radiators are not standing out to me.

I can only imagine that by adding capacity to both the salt flat door slammer I was helping with and on my own vehicle that it could work with enough water on a standing mile car. The only two things that are somewhat unique is we are a 1000hp, blown, iron block four cylinder. I still can't help but think that with the right amount of water that 5,000ft is not going to be too much time under load that running straight water from a reserve tank will not heat up too far without a heat exchanger.

What are some folks thoughts and experiences on this potential setup? Have you used no radiator or seen someone using no radiator and done well with it? Maybe someone with a blown car that makes big power? Thanks for your time.
1947 Dodge Pickup

Offline SPARKY

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2015, 11:53:31 PM »
I run a radiator in a box on my lakester and pump water from another tank through the box.  Hooley and Sumner have a good set of picts on there build on how to build it---there are many advantages and options this system gives you.  All water to water heat exchangers. and plenty of pressure in the block.
Miss LIBERTY,  changing T.K.I.  to noise, dust, rust, BLUE HATS & hopefully not scrap!!

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."   Helen Keller

We are going to explore the racing N words NITROUS & NITRO!

Offline Rex Schimmer

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2015, 01:11:16 AM »
Most land speed cars, if they are allowed to by the rules, prefer not to run a radiator that exposed to the air because of the additional aero drag.

If you are loosing head gaskets and knocking out valve seats then you possibily need more water pump and you need to run the water system at high pressure, NASCAR runs at 75 psi and I have seen some over 150 psi. The radiator in a box allows you to basically run a standard radiator, which allows you to run high engine system pressure, in a container that carries water that cools the radiator. This allows you make a water container that is not pressurized and also because the radiator is in water the size of the radiator can be much smaller. A water to water heat exchanger is about 7 times more efficient that a water to air unit. The proper design of this type of system requires two water pumps, on to circulate the water through the engine and another to circulate the water with in the "box" through the radiator cooling matrix.

If you have a 1000 hp four banger you are obviously turbocharged and this means that you need a water pump that moves at least 100 gpm (10 gpm/100 horse power) at 40 to 50 psi. There is not an electric powered pump available today that will do that so you need to have an engine driven pump. You can use one of the electric pumps to circulate the water in the box but not the engine.

The other option is to use a water reservoir that can be pressurized to what ever you set your system pressure at and the volume has to be high enough that the amount of heat that the water adsorbs does not boil the water. The high pressure raises the boiling point of water and the high velocity of the water because you are using a big pump will substantially lower the possibilities of steam pockets around the exhaust valves that turbo motors like to make. The other advantage of the pressurized container is that you can fill it with water and ice which greatly increases its' capacity to adsorb heat because of the ability of ice to adsorb more heat when it transitions from a solid to a liquie. If you go with this route the only shape for the reservoir is cylindrical every other shape, square box, oval etc will deform and/or just blow up and if they are strong enough not to deform or blow up they will be very heavy.

The amount of heat that an engine dissipates through the cooling system is about 30 percent of the power that the engine produces. This does not mean that it is 30 percent of 1000 hp, in your case, it is 30 percent of the fuel energy that is used. So take your BSFC (Brake Specific Fuel Consumption, which is in lbs/horse power hour) times the hp times the btu energy per pound of fuel and it is approx 30 percent of that number. You can also take 30 percent of your shaft horse power divided by the estimated thermal efficiency of your engine (40 to 60 percent) and get the approx heat load.

A good cooling system can make an engine such as yours reliable or a poorly designed one can make it a grenade. Have fun and keep us up to date on the car as 1000 hp cars are usually very fast.

Rex
Rex

Not much matters and the rest doesn't matter at all.

Offline lmfoley79

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2015, 02:16:07 AM »
Our car has substantially less than 1000hp but we run without a radiator. The cooling system has two tanks. A small surge tank and a large reservoir tank, with a valve to bypass the large tank. With this arrangement you can use the short loop to heat the engine quickly and then switch to a much larger volume of coolant. It has worked well for us so far at El Mirage. Basically for your application you'll need some flexibility in how much water you use in your system, but expect to use quite a bit more than if you were running a radiator. We have about 8 gallons for a healthy 1 liter 4cyl, and it rises maybe 10-15 degrees in temp during a run.

Offline biglady112

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2015, 08:47:03 AM »
At our last event we were still on a stock radiator and cooling system with two fans. It holds a little less than two gallons. We were using a 50/50 water/coolant mix. This year we will be making the switch to straight water. We were making about 850-875whp for that event and it was a half mile event at an airport. We started all four of our runs at 110-120* coolant temperatures and by the engine of each pass we were in the 170-180 range. We obviously intend to double the distance of racing this coming year. The car was on gasoline this year and will be moving back to Ethanol this coming year and we will be increasing the power to somewhere between 900-1000whp for the coming season.

The owner of the car is really against running no radiator but, I have been on board for some time and really think I can make this work in the name of aero.
1947 Dodge Pickup

Offline SPARKY

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2015, 09:59:55 AM »

 I sure would read -reread-- and read it again -----what Rex has laid out

You need PRESSURE and Volume through your eng to handle that many BTUs---of course the alky will help---  you have been depending on heat sink but with the greater distance you need to be able to remove lots of BTUs 

remember also you can remove nearly as many with oil as water.   YMMV
« Last Edit: November 25, 2015, 04:31:57 PM by SPARKY »
Miss LIBERTY,  changing T.K.I.  to noise, dust, rust, BLUE HATS & hopefully not scrap!!

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."   Helen Keller

We are going to explore the racing N words NITROUS & NITRO!

Offline biglady112

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2015, 10:07:26 AM »
It may be beating a dead horse to you but, to us it is brand new. Or else I would not have made the thread asking for ideas on how to make it work correctly. All I have experience with is running a ten gallon reserve and an eight gallon reserve. Both with a radiator. So it is uncharted territory for us. I found pictures but, pictures don't tell the story, issues and successes of a system.
1947 Dodge Pickup

Offline biglady112

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2015, 03:45:00 PM »
We currently only run 5qts of oil in the engine. I intend on putting on my spare 8qt pan here in the next few weeks as well. I am not sure if we will be going to any sort of reservoir for the oil as the salt flat car I was helping with did not seem to need more than about 7qts and aside from a radiator I think this setup will be kind of similar.
1947 Dodge Pickup

Offline SPARKY

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2015, 04:31:28 PM »
Well I will get rid of the horse then!!
Miss LIBERTY,  changing T.K.I.  to noise, dust, rust, BLUE HATS & hopefully not scrap!!

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."   Helen Keller

We are going to explore the racing N words NITROUS & NITRO!

Offline POPS

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2015, 08:03:02 PM »
Our car makes north of 2400hp and runs approximately 1 min 20 seconds. With billet heads and block. No turbo's-no water required.
POPS

Offline biglady112

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2015, 09:20:08 PM »
Alcohol? Nitrous? What car might this be? Any engine shot pictures? Just trying to wrap my head around what some folks are doing and what is successful for them. Thanks.
1947 Dodge Pickup

Offline SPARKY

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #11 on: November 25, 2015, 11:02:30 PM »
my bet would be NITRO  :roll:
Miss LIBERTY,  changing T.K.I.  to noise, dust, rust, BLUE HATS & hopefully not scrap!!

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."   Helen Keller

We are going to explore the racing N words NITROUS & NITRO!

Offline POPS

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2015, 04:38:23 AM »
Alcohol  7800 ABFS

Offline RichFox

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2015, 10:50:23 AM »
And the 7800 car runs 60 psi boost

Offline jimmy six

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Re: Streamliners, lakesters and fast door slammers, no radiator?
« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2015, 11:53:18 AM »
Today we are seeing more dry block/head engines than ever before. They are for the most part fuel engines that I know of and some are blown and others are not.
On lower HP engines an electric pump on an unpressurized non-radiator system can be made to work; it is the way I've done it for years. The best pump I've found is a Maziere and I use return hoses to the tank with a smaller diameter than the supply from the pump. This keeps some "pressure" on the internal of the head and block. I prefer this method and leave the pump on after the run. The total system holds 9 gallons. When I ran over 700HP I had 13 gallons and ran to the 5 mile with out problems....Good Luck.
First GMC 6 powered Fuel roadster over 200, with 2 red hats. Pit crew for Patrick Tone's Super Stock #49 Camaro