Landracing Forum
Tech Information => Technical Discussion => Topic started by: SPARKY on January 17, 2010, 06:10:17 PM
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RATICALS RADIATOR IN A BOX
I have received several inquires about my cooling system and was asked by Evo to start a separate standalone topic.
This system evolved because I have hurt heads and motors with other cooling systems. Back in '01 I ruined a set of heads by not running a pressurized system. In calling around and asking a lot of people I determined what prob. happened--STEAM pockets!!!
This system evolved during the long drive from Texas to B'ville in '02 & '03 with Russ Mack. and through trial and error!!!
components:
1 A conventional high volume water pump
2 AFCO two pass radiator I paid extra to put the outlets in the end tanks
3 A high volume Electric water pump mounted remotely
4 a RV pump to remove the water from the heat exchanger to the remote tank
5 A 25 gallon remote tank for cooling water
6 a 12 gallon specially baffled "BOX" built around the radiator
7 miscellaneous hoses and fittings
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Raticals Radiator in a Box
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25 gallon water cooling tank behind the rear axle
There is a combo vent , fill line that you can barely see on top of the tank
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This shows the .090 alum box I bent with a slight lip that wraps over on the right side that we will weld last after we get the internal baffles cut and fitted. If you look close you can see the weld from AFCO that splits the end tank. I will weld this to the end tanks and will drill a small hole in the outer skin to rosette weld to hold in place. As you can see the majority of the capacity is above the core. The vertical hose goes up to the eng outlet and t larger one to the water pump.
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This shows the lower baffle which will not go all the way to the back plate as this is where the cooling water crosses over to the other side after it has passed through one side of the core. The coolant will enter from upper right come down through the core go to the rear of the box and cross to the other side and come up through this core. The upper baffle is pretty tight very little cooling water can go side to side above the core its tight to all sides and to the core but not on a tube so it shouldn't cause the core to ever leak.
Looking toward the front of the car the water enters upper right, comes down, goes toward the rear of the tank to a 4 sq. inch opening, moves to the left side, goes up and exits upper left.
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On your right you can see the two coolant lines from the Electric pump at the rear axle area. On the left are the two return lines the upper returns to the rear tank. The lower line goes to a rear mount pump so we can empty the box when we go to warm up the Eng. This way we are only heating the water in the Eng and radiator, a closed system with a 28# radiator cap, remote mounted above the Eng.
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better shot of the return lines and 2 capped fittings from an earlier system
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the 2 return lines mentioned above that return to the rear tank
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The same two return hoses
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The farest hose is hooked to the pump you can barely make out, this allows us to empty the "box" whenever we need to.
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The fitting in the center is the pump inlet the other two go to the frt of the car and the upper right hand side of the heat exchanger. I will take some more Pict's of the end caps and how they are bent to close up the box. there are also some tabs that are welded to the radiator end cap st help support the radiator in the box so that the baffle doesn't carry all the weight.
I empty the box, warm up the eng to 190 f when we are waiting in line. Then I get dressed as we work our way forward we are next to run we fire again and when the temp get to 190 again. We turn the coolant pump on when, closing the canopy. This system so far cools 900 + hp with ambient water temp. We were hot lapping some this season doing lisc. passes toward the end of the week and we had to leave the pumps on circulating the water and once we pumped water out on the return road and replaced it with new cool water. We run distilled water only to keep the mineral build up to a min. on the heads and block decks.
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Are you going to run a thermostat?
What I found when I tested a dozen thermostats, is they have different "delay" settings even if they are the same temp. I put them in boiling water and watched them with a stopwatch. Some took 40 seconds, some took as little as 8 seconds. Obviously if a thermostat takes 40 seconds to open, you could overheat before it opened with a racing application. In '08 overheating was an issue for us, but after finding "faster" thermostats (mine uses two), in 09 it wasn't overheating that sent us home, even though we turned up the power a bunch, water got to 180 deg and sat there.
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Yes, I run a 180 thermostat. I try to get a lot of pressure in my block, That is what keeps steam bubbles from forming on the head water passage decks.
I bet when we go back together we will be timing our thermosstat= wonder what the 1/4 time will be? lol
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So I log on, and I see, what, about 10 posts by Sparky, back to back, and I say to myself, "Somebody got the camera out." :cheers:
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its a clever idea Sparky, thanks for the posts.
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We are doing something similar with the lakester but I feel that I didn't make the tank big enough. We start off ice cold (literally) with no thermostat or restrictor. Warms up fast enough!
NASCAR uses well over 40 psi to keep hot spots, current eddy induced steam pockets on the chamber to a minimum.
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We ran last year with a 90 gallon watertank that weighed about 1000lb loaded. It has a lift pump, then the factory pump. It also ran 2 oil squirters per piston.
Might sound a bit crazy, but we were adding 1000lb worth of steel ballast anyhow, which overloaded the trailer axles. So this way, we tow a 1000lb lighter, then fill up the tank local, and dump it to go home. The tank has 9 chambers of 10 gallon each with non-aligned entry and exit ports in each one. This was to resist sloshing. That much water could upset the truck if allowed to shift during a fishtail.
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We built one for the modified roadster too. I run a small pump with a spray bar to disperse water over the top of the radiator like you would with a garden hose to help with cooling. We run less water in tank at El Mirage (about 5 gal) and more at Bonneville (about 10 gal). Works great at out hp level, takes up little space, and gives us the ability to alter or warm up procedures depending on ambient temperatures. Our cooling system runs a 32 psi cap and we've had no cooling issues other than overfilling and purging some coolant.
Note: I'm not running "reverse" cooling though. Standard thermodynamics (heat rises) for me. :-)
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We ran last year with a 90 gallon watertank that weighed about 1000lb loaded. It has a lift pump, then the factory pump. It also ran 2 oil squirters per piston.
Might sound a bit crazy, but we were adding 1000lb worth of steel ballast anyhow, which overloaded the trailer axles. So this way, we tow a 1000lb lighter, then fill up the tank local, and dump it to go home. The tank has 9 chambers of 10 gallon each with non-aligned entry and exit ports in each one. This was to resist sloshing. That much water could upset the truck if allowed to shift during a fishtail.
Sounds very logical to me. It's ballast you don't have to tow. That's easier on everything!
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Pat
Care to let us in on which thermostat brand opened quickly? I'm not lazy but hate to waste money and time testing if I don't have to. LOL
Ron
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Rob, Where can you get that much water locally? I am thinking of a similar tank on our car, and wondered where we could get water from.
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Rob, Where can you get that much water locally? I am thinking of a similar tank on our car, and wondered where we could get water from.
Our Pit!!!!! LOL!
We melt soooo much ice every run we are always looking for a place to get rid of it all!
I think we are going to call the lakester "Ice Eater"
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And if all else fails, the truckstop has a water hose by the diesel pumps! I can see you guys now, driving thru the pits and emptying out the water from everybody's ice chests!! Who would have thought that a $2.00 bag of ice could go so far?.....or so fast! :-D
Lynda
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Stop at the fire department in Wendover. They filled us up and were happy to help.
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Pat
Care to let us in on which thermostat brand opened quickly? I'm not lazy but hate to waste money and time testing if I don't have to. LOL
Ron
I'll see if I can find my notes. The specific P/N's probably won't help much, as I think the front one was off LS1 engine, and the rear was off an LT1, neither was a SBC or SBF.
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I would only run distilled water we catch it on sale at Fry's for .65 gallon---beware of any water with mineral content---heat can ceramic coat your systems meaning less heat transfer.