Jesus loves rotaries

so basically, I have been building this car the past 3 years to be a road racer, I finally got around to changing the intercooler and the rad set up, I was looking into v-mount set ups since it's a full on track car, and I decided to custom make my own, I wanted to do it myself because I didn't really like any of the v mounts I had seen myself through the years and I felt I could make a far superior set up without spending thousands on one already made, so my finished vmount I think came out excellent, and the best thing about it, was it cost me less then $90 in the end considering I salvaged my old fluidyne radiator and my greddy FMIC, all I had to buy really was some couplers and a few mounting supplies, I salvaged all of my piping as well, but enough talk I will let the pics speak for themselves...

oh and BTW this set up retains my a/c and PS


here is the full wide shot of the set up, you will notice I had to move my pettit AST, its' bracket was shortened and placed on the alternator bracket, the hoses were lengthened to accommodate for the move


the intercooler is mounted horizontally and flush along with the ac condensor, luckily I was able to carefully bend the lines to position the condensor to where I needed it since I was worried I would have to have new lines made, it;s directly underneath the intercooler, I chose this set up since I knew I was going to be keeping the stock front bumper for now, I don't want to go with a different one either unless it is a 99 spec, so this set up will easily adapt to that


the fans mounted to the IC core are two 10 inch fans rated at 1500+ cfm without a cire, with it, I am sure it's probably 1/4 of that, however they do push a lot of air enough to keep these the IC very cool, the reason for the fans is to battle heat soaking issues during long races and standing temps, also, it helps helps bring in cold air from the front of the car to lower ambient temps as well in the engine bay,


these are temporary front brackets, I will be making new ones that will not be crooked and will lower the front of the radiator about .5 inch, they are on there right now because when I was doing the conversion, my DD got totaled so I had to quickly finish the car so I could have something to drive, you can see the angle that the radiator is at, the stock fans are mounted underneath and I have a metal under pan from pettit that I have to cut up and remount for the hot air to escape underneath the car, the stock fans pull so much air that before I had the IC fans mounted it actually would pull enough air from the top of the IC and the AC cond. it would cool off both to the touch in less than 2 minutes after turning off the car and having just the fans run


here is a shot looking down into the bay at the back of the IC and the clearance I have, it's enough to have the heater hose run down behind it, I will eventually be placing complete heat shielding along the entire length of the IC because right now it causes the back of the core to get warm, although not hot at all, the back still needs to be isolated to keep hot air from reaching the flow of air from the pull of the fans,


here is the shot of the rad with the cond, and the IC on top, note the "Gr" of the greedy emblem on top the core


pic of the clearance on the passenger side of the IC


Driver side clearance of the IC


this shows the sandwich of the IC on the Cond and the Rad underneath, notice the end tanks of the Cond are wrapped in the foam insulation used on copper heating pipes, the actual IC lays directly on top of it, the foam is for some shock absorption so that the edges and fins do not rub

here is the other side of the IC shot, looks down and sees the wiring into the TNS relay so that fans for the IC are always on when the car is on

yeah so anyway, sorry if this post is a bit jumbled, I am really tired right now ha, I will edit it in the morning, and explain some more stuff a bit better...

anyway, tell me what you guys think?
so far intake temps are really nice right now even though I am not ducted at the moment, that will come later this month, they are around 27c-34c on regular driving, in stop and go it gets up to around 44c but remember I still don't have any ducting to keep JUST cool air going through the car when it's stopped, water temps are unbelievable, on cool days they as low as 80c, they have never gotten above 87 with regular or somewhat hard driving, when I start driving though and air is moving through the IC, the temps drop very quickly...

Jesus loves rotaries

I also forgot to mention that I did NOT modify the radiator for this to have entry and exit on both side, I simply ran a longer hose behind it to reach up into the water pump, I didn't feel like modifying it since it was originally designed to be a single pass radiator, and I wanted it to stay that way, it works great

muibubbles

iTrader: (36)

awesome! great inspiration, i have a greddy fmic and im getting ready to convert it to VMIC as well.. do you think the fans on the IC are needed? i kinda feel like now the 2 fans are battling one another... have you thought about putting a splitter between the IC/rad so they arent fighting each other?

Jesus loves rotaries

^I did think about this but I have ducting on the side of the actual "v" angle, so it just pulls the air from the front of the car, even though it does pull a lot of air, they may over power each other at idle and standing speeds but when you are moving you are flowing a lot of air through the "v" so it doesn't really matter

Prôdigy2nd

iTrader: (3)

This is almost exactly what I am planning to do (except no AC) with my FMIC and my Koyo N flo... just need the time to do it...

this is very helpful, gives me a great idea how much room I have to play with for the whole thing..

one question, do you (or could you get) a few pictures of the hoses you used to make the rad work.. I am not going to modify mine, and just wanted to see if any of the ideas I came had will work, or have been done..

thanks


J.

Speed of light

iTrader: (8)

This raises a good point which is lost on many who have performed V-mount conversions: The IC fans not only will assist with IC cooling, they are essential to prevent the recirculation of hot engine compartment air caused by operation of the radiator fans (through the IC and back into the V gap). This occurs while the car is stopped or moving slowly, e.g., street traffic. The IC Fans should always be wired to come on with the radiator fans (and vice-versa), as all the cooling fans should always run together to achieve proper differential pressure balance around the 'v'.

Additionally, I think the op would be better served by relocating his AC condenser to the radiator side of the V.

turbodrx7

iTrader: (43)

Why keep a/c on car that you are specifically building for a road course?

-Austin

RXtacy

iTrader: (7)

I was wondering that too.

NoPis10

iTrader: (29)

Jesus,
good job but I'm a liitle confused...
1) it looks like it isn't at much of a "V" angle, almost as if they are parallel to each other.
2) I have a Greddy front mount and my water temps never excede 87* either. Is the "V" mount a better option?
3) why A/C on a Track car?
4) did you vent the hood to help hot air escape?

Thanks for sharing

muibubbles

iTrader: (36)

i see a v... the angle isnt as drastic as most though..

i just got my FC oil cooler so ill see how it fits... i plan on doing a vmount with the FC oil cooler sandwiched between the IC/Rad.. well see how it goes...

ps what fans did you buy/where did u get them from?

TitaniumTT

On the topic of the splitter - I had always had a splitter on my setup, and wanted to do an experiment. I was hoping that with the splitter, I would get lower intake temps, and higher coolant temps. What I found was that without the splitter, the coolant temps didn't drop at all, and instead the air temps rose simply from heatsoak. I would put a splitter in.

Have you considered venting the hood and ducting it to the intercooler core? I did this on my setup and it drastically reduced heatsoak from the engine bay and the radiator when driving at slow speeds or just sitting in traffic

t-von

iTrader: (8)

Very good point! IC is directly over top the radiator so it makes since that it will still heat soak without a splitter. I never even thought about that.

Jesus loves rotaries

No no no, the radiator fans flow all of the heat underneath and out of the bottom of the car, I've succesfully eliminated heat soaking issues coming from the radiator with my set up, the only thing that heat soaks the Ic now is the actual heat from the engine and the turbos, which will be fixed soon enough with proper heat shielding on the back of the IC and the turbos

Jesus loves rotaries

I wanted the ac condensor still because although its a track car, I live in Florida and I could die in a black on black car here ,

The angle on the v is very acute but I wanted it to be that way for 2 reasons, 1 I am using the 93 spec bumper because I want to keep drag co efficient as low as possible, also since it's the stock front, the opening is small so keeping it a low degree angle helps to get proper flow to the IC and cond. Also The lower the ICthe less heat soak I will have from engine temps

I wanted the ac condenser in between the IC and radiator to act a a buffer

Also, running a splitter between the IC and the rad won't do anything since Rey both pull cold air from the front

jkstill

iTrader: (11)

Doesn't seem right to me.

There's a great big unrestricted area at the front of the car - the radiator fans aren't going to draw much air through the IC.

Speed of light

iTrader: (8)

Since I've built and tested a couple of these setups, I want to convey a few of my observations for the benefit of the forum:

Actually, you would be surprised by the amount of air that is recirculated by the radiator fans. There is measurable negative pressure in the V during fan operation. This is with the '93--'95 front end. You will need at least 2 or 3 times the open area of the early front bumper to minimize (but not eliminate) the recirculation effect. IC fans offer easy and very effective mitigation for the problem.

Yes, yes yes.... this has been my experience as well. I am using the oem cover underneath as well. Even with the hood up, little or no air seems to be expelled out the top; it's all going out under the car. Very happy with that.

IMO a wise decision to keep the ac.

In my conclusion, the exact angle of the V is inconsequential. 'V' is a characterization of the mounting scheme--it really only needs to be a small plenum of sufficient volume and intake area; the exact shape being relatively unimportant. Most important is that the plenum area is sealed (front, back, sides, and to the bumper) so that you achieve maximum differential pressure across the radiators in order to realize the full potential of the setup.

I'll have to disagree on this point since I've tested it both ways: I added a partial splitter for the purpose of reducing heat soak. The result is that it does help slow down the onset of heatsoak by reducing convection as well as radiant heat. What surprised me is that it improved the airflow through each radiator in the process--this is while the car is moving at moderate and higher speeds. I suspect that the improved airflow is achieved by reducing the amount of swirl turbulence in the plenum area.

Jesus loves rotaries

I'm just gonna draw up some diagrams and post them later tonight because I guess you guys still aren't getting it lol, btw speed of light you are way over the top describing this lol it's much more simple